Everything You Ever?
by TheCrazyFool1995
Summary: A month has passed since Penny died, and a lot has changed for Hammer & Horrible. Sure, he doesn't have a car, but the Doc is in the ELE! And Hammer...is a wreck. But revenge, a plan, and a bargin might force them together to get everything they ever...
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

The secretary peered at the documents in front of her over her tacky, sequin spangled specs, an overly plucked eyebrow raised in ill-disguised contempt. The resume was filled in entirely in wax crayon, several different colours of it to be exact, each one snaking into each other and making the entire thing almost eligible. Who was this joker? He either had a very poor sense of humor or was thicker than a concussed troll. Sigh. It was only eleven o'clock in the morning. It was evidently going to be one of those days…

"I'm afraid I can't accept this, Sir," she said in a horribly nasal voice, the sort that kind of makes you want to rip out your intestines and shove them into your ears just to block out the sound. "You need to put your birth name in the 'Name' box. I'm pretty sure 'Captin Hamur' isn't it." The man in front of her smiled dimly at her. Yep, he was one of _those_ people.

"I think you'll find it is." he said, giving the woman a 'winning' smile. Wasn't so winning with several teeth missing and breath bad enough to sedate a bull elephant. "What other kind of name could someone as awesome as me have?"

"You've put your previous occupation as 'saving peple in danjur'…"

"That's right."

…

The woman shuffled through the rest of the man's papers, each one getting progressively less intelligent. His DOB was down as 31st of February for God's sake! And as for Qualifications…she was pretty sure that 'being rely, rely strong' wasn't on any employer's list. She gathered up each sheet in her clawed hands and thrust them back at the moron in front of her. She should have been better prepared. After all, her fortune cookie had said 'You will come across a great challenge on Monday'.

"Great!" said the man, clapping his gloved hands together, (he was wearing yellow washing-up gloves to an interview?) "When do I start?"

The secretary let out another bored sigh.

"You don't. You don't meet any of the requirements for the jobs you've applied for. Sorry. Try somewhere else." The man's face scrunched up in confusion. Five minutes later, he'd processed what she'd said.

"Wait, so you're not gonna give me a job?"

"Nope."

"How come?"

Oh my…the secretary paused for a moment, comprising a list of reasons why not to give this man a job. Deciding it would take too many long to give him all of those some 189,960,227 reasons, she settled on the easiest, and possibly the biggest, one of all:

"A dead slug has more functioning brain cells than you. Not even the food chain Cluck Bucket will take you; they have a minimum IQ requirement of 6."

"Oh…"

Captain Hammer slumped out of the Job Centre, feeling dejected. This was the forth time he'd been told that there were no jobs for him in the entire of Los Angeles. It was impossible; how could there not be any jobs for someone with such perfectly chiseled features? Or such bouncy, wafty hair? True, he wasn't as well groomed as usual; some nasty men called Reepos or something had gone into his Command Centre and had taken everything in it: the Ham-Jet, the Hammer Cycle, even his fluffy bunny rabbit, Rex. They had also gotten the idea that Hammer didn't want his Centre anymore, and had put it up for sale. When he had gone over to tell them that it was all a big mistake, they laughed at him, and said something about rent? He thought they were on about the musical.

His psychiatrist had also dropped him, ranting on and on about wanting to be paid or something. At least he'd managed to stop bursting int to tears randomly now, although, sometimes, when he was alone on a bench at night, he would cry to himself. Who would have thought pain would be so…painful? He absently picked at a hole in his Hammer Tee. You know who's fault this was? Horrible's. That swotty, snot-nosed meany was the one to blame for all of this. Before HE had come along, Captain Hammer had been fine not being able to multiply numbers by anything other than one, or being able to read...stuff. He'd had his strength, and that had been enough. But nowadays, he could hardly lift a car.

Now he sort of wished he'd got past third grade...

He shuffled round the corner of the street, head bowed. People on the pavement leapt aside and gave him a wide berth. Nobody called his name, no one ran up to him asking for his autograph (although he didn't mind that too much, because it meant a lot of writing). It had only been a month since THAT day, and already the people had forgotten all about their best protector; Captain Hammer, the Doer of Good, the Stopper of Evil. He collapsed on a bench and dissolved in to klaxon-like sobs. The world was so unfair! How did he deserve this, how had he ended sat on a bench like one of those non-special people, when just a month ago he had been the greatest, goodist man on Earth? He had been expecting a Nobel Prize in Awesomeness any day, the mayor had just dedicated some building to him for all his good work! He was a super hero, a globally recognised star, better than everyone else in this city, in America, probably even all of the other nine continents of the world. He bet that there were people in mud huts somewhere bowing down to a newspaper cutting of him, calling him their God!

He wiped his nose noisily on the back of his glove. These gloves weren't nearly as comfy as his old ones. The evil Doctor had nicked those when he'd been on the floor, crying. What a way to kick a man when he's down! Just another reason to hate that Dr Horrible. One day, he was going to make him pay for everything evil he'd ever done. One day, he was going to make Horrible buy him a new pair of gloves, and one day-

Hammer froze, mid thought. Someone was sat next to him, he was sure of it- he could hear all the little ins and outs as they breathed. Slowly, Hammer turned to face his bench buddy. No. It couldn't be...but there was no mistaking that mess of blonde hair, those blue eyes, such shortness and those muscles that were smaller than a deflated balloon. For who knows how long, he had been sat next to his arch nemesis. The weird thing was though, he wasn't dressed in his usual lab coat. He was wearing jeans and a hoodie, and was staring intently at the grubby building across the street called The Caring Hands Homeless Shelter. Whatever that was.

In one not-so-fluid movement, Hammer got to his feet, puffed out his chest, and faced his enemy.

"Horrible."

The Doctor glanced up at Hammer for only a moment, quickly taking in the unshaven, matted and soup stained form of Captain Hammer, before returning his gaze to the old building. Nothing. He felt absolutely nothing, not even the smallest amount of glee rose inside of him at the sorry state of his arch nemesis. He really ought to be doing some kind of dance, celebrating the downfall of Hammer. But he couldn't even bring himself to grin. Maybe Moist was right; maybe there was something wrong with him...maybe he should go see a doctor? A lot of good that would do though. He saw, out of the corner of his eye, the bedraggled Hammer brandishing his fist at him.

"What evil plot are you plotting now Dr Horrible, hmm? A bank heist? Kidnap?" Hammer's voice rose to a shout. "Well, never fear, citizens of Los Angeles, Captain Hammer is hear to save you all from the dastardly plots of Horrible!"

Dr Horrible snorted at Hammer's stupidity. Could that guy be any more of a douche? A couple of people across the road were shooting Hammer furtive glances, clearly under the impression that he was some kind of nut-job. Well, they weren't far wrong.

"I'm not plotting anything." he sighed, not tearing his gaze away from the homeless shelter. "Now, please do me a favor; go away and take a shower, because you stink." What he wouldn't give for a few moments of peace and quiet. He rubbed his brow, trying to numb the constant headache he'd had for about a month. He was up to his eyeballs in aspirin, but nothing seemed to be working. It was giving him creativity block, too; he hadn't had an evil outing in weeks.

"Did Dora the Explorer write that insult for you?" Hammer chuckled at what he mistakenly thought was a witty and hilarious comeback. "It takes more than hurtful words to defeat Captain Hammer. Insults won't stop ME from pounding you into the dust."

"It wasn't an insult," breathed Horrible, rolling his eyes at the ex-super hero. "You really do reek worse than Fresh Kills Garbage Dump." Dr Horrible edged away from the lunatic, partly because of the stench, and partly because he didn't want anyone to think that he was associated with such a person. He withdrew a folded photograph from within his inner jacket pocket. He handled it carefully, cautious not to tear the corners of it as he opened it. The subject of the photo was a red-haired girl, very pretty, reading a book and apparently unaware that she was being photographed. She was sat on the same bench as Horrible was now; the corner of the homeless shelter was just visible. The evil genius stared almost hungrily at the picture, drinking up almost everything in it. Every now and then, his head would snap up towards the street, as though expecting someone to materialize there. Beside him, Captain Hammer was continuing to declare his awesomeness, and plot many ways of defeating the man beside him, to nobody in particular.

"-and I'll throw you clean across the state of Alabama, because I can do that sort of thing, because I'm so strong!" he hollered, "I 'll pound your face into mince and feed you to all the hungry dogs in the city and then people will worship me as their hero again, and to top it all off, I'll make sure that you pay for each of your evil deeds by-" he stopped, frowning at Dr Horrible, who seemed to be paying no attention whatsoever to his speech. What was the point of threatening someone if they weren't going to listen to you?

"It's rude to ignore people, ya know!" said Captain Hammer huffily, folding his arms in a sulk. It was then that he noticed the picture clasped in the man's hands. He craned over Horrible's shoulder (which really didn't take much doing) to get a better look at it. The girl in it looked vaguely familiar. What was her name? Jenny? He was pretty sure that he'd Hammered her at one point or another. He wasn't surprised he couldn't remember her too well; so many women wanted a piece of the Tool...

"Look," muttered Horrible without turning around, making Hammer jump backwards in fright. "I'm really not up to anything, so can you go find some other poor geezer to annoy?"

"No Freeze Rays?"

"You know those never work."

"No super-strength formulas?"

"After last time?" Horrible shook his head in disbelief. "Do you _really_ think I want to end up with your mind again?"

"A Death Ray?"

"Callous murder isn't really my thing."

"So you really AREN'T planing any scheming...schemes?" his eyebrows jumped into across his hair line in shock.

"Well done. We've got there eventually."

"So, if you're not doing evil stuff, then why are you here?"

That caught the Doctor by surprise.

"I'm..." he trailed off, thinking hard. The truth was, he didn't know what he was doing there anymore than Hammer did.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Ok, second chapter's up, I hope you enjoy it. I know the rhyme pattern for the Bad Horse Chorus isn't perfect, but I tried my best. Please R&R =)

The week following that…incident, ( you know, the one that Dr Horrible _really_ hated to think about because it made him feel like someone had torn out his heart and staked it like it belonged to some sparkly vampire. The one where he accidentally killed the love of his life, Penny, due to nothing more than a fluke and really crappy luck? Yes?) was probably the worst he had ever experienced. He had felt completely and utterly lost; it was as though he didn't know what to do with himself anymore. But, being a super villain meant that he had to keep up appearances, he couldn't be seen to be having an emotional break down over some…girl. So he went about his daily business, making sure that no one could forget the newest evil genius on the block. He took his henchman, Moist, out for a day trip to the local bank, held the bankers at gun point, took over $3,000,000 from their high security safes, the usual things that you do when you go to a bank. He really should have been having the time of his life; he had the world (well, at least the city) on bended knee, henchmen to do his bidding, and, of course, he had gotten to meet the terrible, the feared, Bad Horse. He had been The Thoroughbred of Sin's biggest fan since aged eight. After over twenty years of failed plots and schemes, he had gotten into the Evil League of Evil, and was now sat amongst some of the greatest villains of all time; Dead Bowie, Fake Thomas Jefferson, Professor Normal and Tie Die were just a few of the infamous masterminds that he took council with. He should have been ecstatic. He should have had to staple his lips shut to stop himself from singing.

But, of course, he wasn't. And as for the latter, that would have been extremely hard to explain to the people at A and E.

And that was the reason why Billy was sat in his overly large armchair at the crack of dawn on a Monday morning, not planning a new and evil way of overthrowing the Status Quo, but sat staring at a photograph of the late Caring Hand's Volunteer, Penny. His free hand carefully traced over the stationary lips of the girl, maybe trying to will them to move, to speak to him.

"Why, Penny, why?" he muttered to himself, his voice shaking a little. It was a good thing Moist was out buying groceries; Horrible was under the distinct impression that his henchman thought that he was losing it a bit. Catching him talking to a photo would probably only enforce that idea. He sighed a little. "Stupid, stupid inventions!" he snarled, pounding his head with his fist. "Why does everything I make blow up? No, scratch that, why does everything I make blow up, miss the one person I was actually aiming for, and hit the only person I…" he trailed of, sinking back into silent thought.

He turned his attention back to the photo. He remembered the day he took it very well. Mainly because he had spent most of it hiding in a trash can getting empty polystyrene cups and empty wrappers chucked on him. He'd hidden there, waiting for Penny to finish her shift at the shelter and take a seat on the bench and wait for the number 7 bus to turn up to get home. When he had told Moist what he had done, the man had thought him weird and slightly touched in the head. Even Dr Horrible himself had been taken aback when the idea had popped into his head over six months ago. It was creepy, not to mention a little stalkerish. But now…he was glad that he'd done it. It was the only real proof that she had existed, that she hadn't just been a figment of his imagination that had been invented to coexist alongside his schizophrenic persona 'Dr Horrible', whom he used to make himself feel as though he had a footing a society and was a product of an abusive and traumatic childhood.

Well, that's what his shrink had told him at least…

He sighed, tucking the photo away into his jacket for the umpteenth time that morning. He took another sip of his coffee, which had remained perched on the edge of his armchair. Eugh; stone cold. Shuddering, he glanced over at his computer, the monitor still glowing. On that first day after that...thing, he had turned on his blog camera and just stared at it. He had planned on doing some kind of remembrance for Penny, but the words got stuck in his throat, as though someone had shoved a tennis ball down it. He guessed there just weren't words that could explain how or why she had meant so much to him. He supposed that Moist had turned it off in the end.

He shook his head; no, thinking about all that wasn't going to do him any good. He should do something constructive, preferably something evil. He didn't want the ELE thinking that he was going soft…

He hadn't touched his blog since he'd…conquered Hammer. Yes, yes… he should update it with a fearsome and terrible speech boasting about his triumph. That would cheer him up.

He quickly shoved on his goggles, not bothering with the lab coat (it was still covered in stains from his last half-hearted attempt to make a new ray), shuffled over to his PC and turned his camera on. Pressing record and clearing his throat a little, he started with his victory speech.

"Greetings, my loyal…subjects? No, no, no, too poncy," he tapped the delete key and started again.

"Greetings, my loyal followers, it is I, Dr Horrible, the greatest evil mind in the history of…um…all evil! Things are changing my friends, and for the better! That plank Captain Hammer is gone, I am now officially a member of the ELE, AND the Status Quo is becoming…err...quoer? Is 'quoer' even a word?" he clapped a hand to his head. "Think, Billy think! That shouldn't take that long…" Slapping delete once more, he tried again. Third time lucky?

"Good morning, my loyal followers, I, Dr Horrible, with a PhD in horribleness, have returned to tell you about my latest…oh, great, one sec…" a loud ringing sound interrupted the Doctor. Sighing, he reached over for his phone; it was probably just Moist calling to ask which kind of apples he wanted.

"Hello?"

_Bad Horse_

_Bad Horse_

_Bad Horse_

_Bad Horse_

_He's called an urgent meeting; _

_He needs you in his room_

_You better get your coat on Doc,_

_He wants you here real soon_

_He says he won't be waiting_

_It's 'bout Earth's impending doom…_

_So get off your arse, get here now_

_By train, by car, we don't care how _

_Bad Horse_

_Bad Horse _

_Bad Horse_

_He's Bad_

_It all sounds quite important_

_And your invite's atop the list_

_He said that it's the meeting_

_That really can't be missed_

_And if you do a no-show,_

_You'll make the Bad Horse pi-_

The message stopped abruptly as the phone clattered to the floor. The door had swung open directly behind the Doctor, making him jump about ten foot into the air and crumple in a heap on the floor.

"Back!" called Moist, struggling to get through the doorway carrying what looked like a years supply of food. "I've picked up your red coat from the dry cleaners, and I know that you prefer those alpha bite things in those yellow tins, but they had a three for two deal on spaghetti hoops so I thought-" the henchman turned around to see Horrible on all fours, massaging his elbow and checking for signs of a brain hemorrhage.

"You all right Boss?" he enquired, attempting to wipe the layer of slime off of his forehead but only succeeding in knocking the lamp off the table with one of his shopping bags.

"Yeah. Yeah I'm fine. Never been better." he muttered distractedly. Fumbling around beneath the desk his fingers finally closed on his phone.

"Got an urgent message from the ELE." it took every ounce of effort for Billy to place a smug smile on his face. "I'm needed right away."

"Wow, that's so cool. D'you know what it's about?"

"Oh, yeah, they said it was about 'Earths impending doom' or something. Sounds important, I'd better get going pretty soon."

"I'd drive you Doc, but I've got your ten tubs of Ben and Jerry's in here somewhere, and they're gonna start melting if I don't get them in the freezer." he started heaving the many plastic carriers towards the kitchen. "Oh, wait a second!" he called. Billy paused, one arm dangling out of the armhole of his coat.

"I saw Dead Bowie on my way back; he said that Professor Normal needs a favor or something. He couldn't stay long; there was a LAPD copter and a couple of squad cars tailing him."

"I'll check in with him when I get there, see what it is Normal wants." said Horrible, now trying to figure out how on earth he'd managed to get his lab coat on back to front. Stupid buttons…

* * *

Five minutes later, Dr Horrible was bounding down the stairs of there apartment, and across town as fast as his surprisingly short legs could carry him. Even so, he only just managed to get on the subway in time, clutching a stitch in his side. Only as he sat down did he notice that the entire carriage was silent and watching him, some fearfully, some with extreme curiosity.

"What?" he snapped, feeling a little irritated. Didn't these folk know it was rude to stare? "Haven't you ever seen an evil mastermind ride public transport? We don't all have jet powered rockets you know!"

Idiots.

The ride to the ELE headquarters was uncomfortable and ridiculously slow. After twenty minutes, the Doctor was becoming anxious. If this stupid tin can didn't hurry, he'd be on the receiving end of a Death Whinny. Those things were loud and terrible enough to knock someone out cold for half an hour. He had experience.

Finally, it was his stop. Horrible raced out of the station, careful to avoid glancing across the street; the ELE was situated not far from the Laundry Mat, and he hadn't been to the place since Penny had gone. The wrought iron gates swung forward to admit him as he approached the manor. Henchmen milled around in the courtyard, and Egor's 5 through to 29 hobbled around, muttering gibberish. Creepy things they were; they looked a little like the Hunchback of Notre Dame, minus his charm and good looks. He picked up his pace and strode through the many corridors of the headquarters, averting his eyes to the many squiggly things in the green tanks. At last, he reached the double doors which led to the Conference Room.

"Horrible," greeted the guard at the door, bowing low to him. His name was Stock, and he was thicker than two short planks with a skull ten times as hard.

He swung the doors open to admit the evil Doctor. The room within was dimly lit and stank of a mix of horse, feet and, for some bizarre reason, Wrigley's Extra Strong Gum.

"Ah, good, you've arrived Horrible." said Professor Normal, his low voice echoing through the hall. From behind him, Bad Horse whinnied, stamping a hoof onto the stone floor.

"Yes yes, of course Sire; sit down Doctor, we must begin with these pressing matters immediately." Billy slid into the chair nearest the door quite self-consciously. Dead Bowie gave him nod as he settled, and Fury Leika gave him a fleeting smile before returning her attention to Normal. Snake Bite glared venomously at him, but she was a jack-ass, so he didn't really care.

"Right. The issues." Normal shuffled the papers on his part of the desk. "Bad Horse is of the opinion that evil-doing has been a little…slow of late. He reckons, and I'm sure most of you will agree, that it is high time that we put some plans into action concerning global domination." there was a murmur of assent amongst the group.

"So, any ideas?"

"Wait, that's it?" said Dead Bowie in disgust. "I thought you already had a plan?"

"I have an idea," said Professor Normal, "but I want to see if any of you lot have a better one. Mine's a bit gruesome."

"Isn't that the best kind?" put in Tie Die "Make all the heroes squirm like puppies so that a take over is easy?"

"Some of you," Normal's eyes darted towards Horrible for a moment. "Might not approve. Or you might just be pansies, I'm not sure."

"I still reckon that we should do a governmental election fix..." grumbled Fake Thomas Jefferson.

"NEIGH" neighed Bad Horse, spraying them all with saliva.

"Bad Horse thinks you're a douche, Jefferson." muttered Dead Bowie somberly.

"I noticed…"

"WHINNY!"

"He said he'll do bad things to you. Involving a piano, a length of skipping rope and a bowl of petunias…"

"Anyway!" Normal cleared his throat and glanced a little nervously between Bad Horse and Jefferson, "I think that, as none of you have any ideas-"

"I doubt he was going ussse any of oursssss anywaysss…"hissed Snake Bite in an undertone.

"-I suggest we use mine; the Resurrect-Ohm-Meter!"

"Balls!"

Every head snapped towards Dr Horrible. The man had jumped so violently that he had knocked Dead Bowie's cup of scalding hot tea all over himself, giving the impression that he had had a little accident down south. Several of the ELE members fought to hide sniggers. Horrible felt his face flush crimson.

"Sorry, go on."

"As I was saying, this is probably the only way we can go." said Normal. He was now handing out blue prints to everyone at the table. "This machine is most ingenious, if I do say so myself. I have only created a prototype thus far. I was hoping that you-" he nodded at Dr Horrible, who was trying to make the tea stains less noticeable "-would consent to helping me build the real thing?"

Horrible attempted to answer, but his heart was hammering somewhere in the region of his throat. He choked on his words one, then resorted to nodding vigorously.

"Excellent. Fabulous. Well, as you can probably tell by the name, the purpose of this machine is to reanimate the deceased, with only a limited amount of side affects. We can take the remains of the person we want to reanimate, regardless of the state, and use the machine to re-build them, meaning that we can resurrect long dead villains, even heroes if we re-programme their minds, and use them to build ourselves an undead army. Now, it works by-"

Horrible didn't hear much of the rest of Normal's speech. He was too engrossed in his own little imaginary world. It didn't take a genius to figure out what was going through his head; images of a young, red haired girl swam before his eyes- Penny, very much alive, programmed to love him forever…

"This is wrong…" he muttered under his breath, but nobody heard him. It couldn't be right to raise the dead could it? He was trying to convince himself more than anyone else. But that tends to be quite hard when you start thinking about all of the possibilities…

"We'll resume this tomorrow, I think." Bad Horse tossed his mane in approval of Normal's words. "Horrible," Billy started a little, the sound of the Professor's name bringing him out of his day dream.

"I would like you to get here a little earlier, to show you the device and ask you for some imput."

"Of-of course Normal. I'll be here early. Ish." He quickly adjusted his goggles, which had been slipping further and further down his face for the past ten minutes.

"Good. I wish you a...horrible day." Horrible watched as the Professor strolled down one of the corridors, snapping his fingers at two slouching Egors.

"This is not good...not good." muttered Dr Horrible, running his fingers through his hair. Never in his wildest dreams (and believe me, some of those were pretty damn crazy) did he believe that he would find away to bring Penny back, and so shortly after her death! But to him, it seemed like on of those phone calls that you get telling you that you've got an all expenses paid holiday to Jamaica; it had to be too good to be true.

"But Normal's inventions are usually good...way better than mine at any rate." He started down the hall, still running his fingers through his hair. "What harm could be in trying? I suppose I'd have to..." he trailed off as he meandered back out into the blazing sun. A car could have hit him on his way home and he wouldn't have felt it. An atomic bomb could have exploded behind him and devoured the city in a wall of flame and seriously poisoness gas, and he wouldn't have turned around. Well, if it had been an atomic bomb, he wouldn't of had chance, he would have been reduced to a puddle of goo, but the point is that Horrible was completely and utterly absorbed in the idea of seeing Penny's face one more time.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Three wrong busses and a hitch on a garbage truck later, Billy finally made it through his door, although that in itself was a miracle; he was so preoccupied that it was surprising that he didn't try to get into the wrong apartment. After five attempts at getting the key in the door, the thing eventually swung open with a loud creek.

"Switch? Is that you?" came a voice from the other room. "I didn't think you'd be here until one, so I've not finished getting ready and- oh it's you Doc!" Moist flushed as he rounded the corner and fiddled with his freshly laundered suit self consciously. A bunch of flowers hung limply in his hand. "How did your meeting go? Do any evil plotting?" he frowned, looking the Doctor up and down.

"Are you Ok? You're looking a little peaky."

"No, no, I'm fine." he replied. The goggles fell with a clatter onto the side table. "I think I'm gonna work on the Freeze Ray again; try and improve it, make sure that it doesn't cut out again." Moist looked at him with a slightly shocked expression. He though that the Doctor had got the message that his Freeze Ray, well, sucked. Tentatively, he asked Horrible if it would be better to put the thing in a dresser, lock it securely, toast it until it resembled the Doc's cooking and then scatter the ashes over the Atlantic ocean, just for good measure.

"No, it'll work this time, I'm certain; Normal told me that if I added a small amount of Idium Peroxide solution to the mechanism, it would work without flaw."

"Ok, sure." said Moist, not remotely convinced. "Well, I better get ready…big date and all…could probably do with coating myself with another can of anti-perspirant." he hurried off, glancing with concern at Billy until he was around the corner. When he heard the door slam, Horrible's grin (which was faker than a nine bob note and wouldn't have fooled even the likes of Paris Hilton) slid off his face, turning into an ugly grimace.

"What am I meant to do with this?" he asked himself, furrowing his brow. How could he possibly help Normal make this machine without even considering using it to get Penny back? It would be like telling a crack addict he's got to reform whilst dangling a bag of the stuff in front of his face. Turning around, he saw the PC monitor was still on (geez, no wonder he had one hell of an electricity bill) and, before he knew what he was doing, Horrible was sat in front of it, the record button on his camera flashing, talking like he hadn't talked in months.

"Right, "he began, twisting his fingers on his lap nervously, "as you know, my Lets-Kill-Hammer-At-The-Homeless-Shelter-Opening-To-Get-Into-The-ELE-And-Win-Penny's-Heart scheme was only partially successful. As in I got into the ELE, but failed to kill Hammer and, rather than sweeping Penny off of her feet, accidentally murdered her with a flying piece of shrapnel, which could have hit anyone in the room, but just happened to slice through her stomach. Well, there has been a revelation in the latter part of my failure. I've just been to a top secret meeting with the ELE, and Professor Normal has come up this…weird device thing that he can use to resurrect people, which he plans to use to make an army of zombies that can take over the world, but I might be able to use to bring back the girl of my dreams whom I placed in a hole six feet underground…" scratching his head, he asked his audience the crucial question: "I don't know, should I do it? I mean, I would have to betray the people at ELE, and that probably won't go down too well, and I could get caught, it could go wrong…but, it would mean that I could have her back, and then maybe she'd see that I'm the one that she's meant to be with, not that cry-baby Hammer, who, might I add, just left her to die even though she was his 'serious long term girlfriend'." He trailed off, thoughts racing.

"She would love me if I brought her back, right? I would have saved her from death; it would prove how much I care about her. More than that moronic Hammer ever did…" Quite suddenly, an awful notion cropped into Horrible's brain, a little niggling thing that squirmed its way right into the middle of his overly-large mind.

"But, what if… what if she resented me for bringing her back into this un-quo world? Or even hated me, seeing as though it's sort of my fault she died in the first place?" he groaned, pressing his palms into his eye sockets. "Oh man, I don't know what to do! This could go so horribly wrong, I could end up in prison, Bad Horse could get mad and eat my left arm, if I brought her back, she could tell me to shove it." He paused a moment.

"I could even get done for necrophilia."

He stared at the little blinking light on his camera for a while. It was quite soothing watching the red LED go on and off, on and off…oh crap, he was really watching a flashing light. Maybe that Hammer Strength Injection was recurring, like some kind of weird malaria that would suddenly hit again and reduce your IQ to minus figures…

"Oh," said Dr Horrible, coming out of his revere long enough to realize that the camera was still rolling, "I'm going to be starting work on the Freeze Ray again, and BTW, it's going to work this time. Properly. A little tid-bit from Professor Normal will allow me to fix the mechanisms, so there shall no longer be any problems with that. And Johnny Snow, I will not be fighting you in the disused warehouse on 25th. Have you seen the state of the place? One blast of my Stun Ray and the whole place would fall apart. Later dudes." he signed off and quickly posted the newest part of his blog to his website, watching it through once.

"Later _dudes_?" Horrible groaned as it reached the end, disgusted with himself. He really had to stop trying to 'get down with the kids'; it was really cramping his style. He shook his head. Ok, now he sounded like a ninety-year old pensioner. This is why his psychiatrist said that he should avoid stressful situations; it made him say really stupid things.

To do something constructive (and to also take his mind off of Penny and the fact that he sounded like a complete berk on his blog), Billy trudged over to his Table of Evil Schemes, where the Freeze Ray lay, surrounded by the remnants of his Death Ray, which acted as a constant reminder to how much he had ballsed up his ultimate plan. He snatched up a small bottle of purple liquid from the lowest shelf, a bottle that was completely plastered with every warning symbol known to man, including one that looked curiously like a mammoth swallowing an avocado. Carefully, Horrible unscrewed the cap, and then syringed a small amount of the Idium Peroxide into the Freeze Ray. It fizzled the moment the liquid touched the metal innards of the gun, then let of a bang like a cannon and blasted an electric blue ray from the nozzle, hitting an unsuspecting fly mid-buzz. Dr Horrible examined the frozen insect with little interest. Only marginally satisfied that his famously faulty Freeze Ray was now fully functioning, he switched it off. The bluebottle regained its movement instantaneously, but its speed had somehow increased dramatically. It zoomed around in a daze for a moment before plowing head first into the window and ending up with its brain going through its arse.

It truly is an awful way to die.

Dr Horrible frowned unhappily at his table. He had been hoping that fixing his ray was going to take him a few hours, keep his mind occupied. It was only late morning, and he now faced a day with nothing to do except brood, and attempt to clean that weird beige sludge (which he had no idea as to what it was, and had no inclination to find out) off of his goggles. He figured that procrastination was probably the best course of action for that job.

"Moist!" he yelled. He took the muffled yelp that came from his henchman's bedroom as an acknowledgement. "I'm going out for a bit. To…plot something really cunning and evil. Just lock up when you go out, will you? I don't want to come back to find Wingspan or someone waiting to ambush me again." With that, he slung his lab coat onto the back of his chair and sped out the door and into street once more.

His feet carried him to wherever they wished, past the park, the ugly grey office blocks and suburban housing, until the brought him to a stop in a dodgy-looking alleyway where two stubble-faced men sat on a cracked stair outside a house, drinking something that probably wasn't Diet Pepsi way too early in the morning. They glared at Horrible with bloodshot eyes, but he only had eyes for the small, inconspicuous building on the corner of the street. The sign proclaiming it to be the Caring Hands Homeless Shelter flashed somberly against the grimy walls. To most people, it was vile and undeserving of their attention. To Horrible, however, it was a palace, a memorial for the woman whom he had been too much of a chicken to talk to, to shy to tell her how pretty she was, too scared to voice how her felt about her, and loads of other really soppy stuff. Billy sank onto the peeling bench just outside of the shelter, and that was how he had remained until the dim-witted Hammer had collapsed, blubbering, next to him.

He hadn't paid much attention to most of the deranged man's threats, delusional mutterings and quick-fire questions, countering them with witty remarks, but then Hammer did the unthinkable. He asked Horrible a question that he didn't know the answer to.

"So, if you're not doing evil stuff, then why are you here?"

It actually did more than catch the Doctor by surprise; it felt more like his stomach had fallen through the pavement and was resting somewhere near the center of the Earth.

"I'm…" Horrible stuttered, his brain whirring, trying to come up with a good reason as to why he was sat on a bench staring at a building that didn't give off the impression that he really ought to be in some kind of institute.

"Hey," said Hammer, cutting Dr Horrible off mid-stammer. "I remember this place. Some chick brought me here once. Something to do with homeless thingy me bobs, I think she must've meant stinky folk 'cause they reeked worse than a nerd's gym socks." Billy was about to point out that Hammer didn't exactly smell like a spring meadow, but he cut him off again.

"Don't remember her name. Was it Jenny? Polly? Lenny? Gin-"

"It was Penny…"

"Ah, yes, of course!" said Hammer. It was amazing how easy the guy perked up. Simple minds he supposed... "Ginger girl, kinda small and geeky looking? Didn't you fancy her Doc? Just goes to show women don't like brains; they want good looks, charm, rugged handsomeness and someone with the ability to literally sweep them off their feet. What happened to her anyway? I haven't seen her in a while, did she go back home to wherever albinos come from?"

Billy wondered if the name 'Hammer' had derived from the tool that his mother used to bludgeon him around the head with as a child.

"She's…dead…" the last word stuck awkwardly in his throat, like it hadn't wanted to come out.

"Shame," said Hammer, without even a hint of despair in his voice, "she was pretty cute. So, anyway, what are you doing here? Why aren't you out gloating and taking over the world with all of your evil buddies?"

"I don't know. I don't really feel like it."

"A likely story. I bet your plotting something right now, aren't you Doctor Horrible? I can see it in your eyes. I'm very good at seeing things."

Horrible shook his head with a sigh. Couldn't he get the jist already? It was like trying to explain quantum physics to a Labrador.

"Can't you just go home Hammer?"

"No, I can't, thanks to you." said Hammer, pouting "they took all my stuff away because, apparently I 'can't afford' it. I've been taken off of the Council of Champions because I'm 'not in a suitable position to coerce with other heroes', whatever that means. I've lost everything, thanks to you. I hope you're happy, Horrible." he folded his arms, his lip jutting out considerably.

"I'm not particularly happy _actually_!" spat Horrible. His patience already had a massive gaping hole in the middle of it, and Hammer seemed determined to rip it to shreds.

"Ha! Why not, Horrible? You got everything you ever, didn't you, all your fame and money and evilness and stuff. Your baddie club let you join didn't they? So what have _you_ got to complain about, huh? _You're_ not sleeping under bits of smelly paper next to smelly non-special people are you?"

"I didn't get everything I ever…" muttered Horrible in a barely audible whisper.

Hammer snorted in disbelief. "How not? You've got everything I had, that's a perfect life isn't it? You're like the evil me, except not as handsome, flimsier than a rubber band and without the romantic appeal."

"I'm not like you!" cried Horrible, mortified. "I don't follow this oppressive regime and reinforce its poor morals! I don't use people the way you do! I strive for a better tomorrow, a fairer tomorrow, and a tomorrow that I possibly rule!"

"Fair point," said Hammer, although it was obvious that he hadn't a clue what Horrible had just said "you couldn't even score a date with that Penny girl, could you? She never like you, did she? You're right, I'm way better than you!"

Horrible's face fell at the truth of Hammer's words…Penny had never liked him…at least not in the same way…

"Wait a sec…" said Hammer. It was as though a light bulb had flicked on inside his head. Horrible could almost here the little 'ding!' "This isn't about the launderette girl is it? You've gone all frowny over some dead girl that didn't like you!" he laughed cruelly. "Well, tough titties, if you snooze you loose. She's dead, and there isn't anyway you can bring her back!"

"What I don't get," snarled Horrible, venomous rage pumping through his veins, "is why you haven't chucked me clean across the city already? Is there something you're not telling us, hmm?" It was Hammer's turn to stutter and stall like a crack pot old car. Horrible knew exactly what had happened to Hammer; the Death Ray had contained a mixture of compounds designed to render all muscles (including the heart) useless. Had it been fully functioning, it would have caused instantaneous death. But the backfiring ray had been less powerful, only enough to considerably weaken anyone it hit…

"Malnourishment!" cried Hammer, his voice jumping several octaves. "I'd be fine if I could get a decent meal around here! But they don't serve eight course breakfasts at the shelter thing! I'd throw you to the moon if-"

"No you couldn't." Horrible grinned maliciously, but his heart still thudded dully inside his chest. "You could eat a hundred cattle and you'd never get you're strength back. You're doomed to be normal forever." At this, Hammer burst into a fresh wave of sobs. Horrible cringed as his salty tears doused him.

"N-n-normal?" he wailed. "I c-c-can't be n-n-n-normal!" he fell to the floor, pummeling his fists on the pavement crying "I'm normal!" at the top of his lungs. Horrible ought to be feeling pleased for himself, but he didn't. Hammer's words still burned through his thoughts. And there was still the issue with the Resurrect-Ohm-Meter. A part of him wanted to bring Penny back just to prove to Hammer that she had cared about him. But there were all those ethical issues and the like, not to mention the problems of being able to use the machine without-

Horrible paused mid-thought. 'What would really help,' he thought to himself 'would be if I had someone with skills that I don't. Someone with the physical capabilities to rid any obstacles that might otherwise hinder me, someone who could easily get the parts required for the machine, and then, after it was created, help me get into the ELE headquarters and keep people at bay whilst I activated the machine to bring Penny back…' Horrible's eyes rested on the wailing Hammer at his feet. Something changed within him that moment, and the fears seemed to melt away, all his little qualms disappeared, a little like when Hammer had told him that he was going to take Penny, not because he cared, but just to get at Horrible. Desire burned in his chest. A desire to see Penny again, but also a desire for a way to teach Hammer a lesson for every wrong he'd done to him. In a way that would be truly ironic… But Captain Hammer was a shadow of his former self, only marginally stronger than a normal human…

Dr Horrible's thoughts flew to a little case, a case shunted to the side of his lab where all of his failed experiments were left to decay. A little case that contained a strength injection, containing the DNA of one Captain Hammer, a concoction that would allow someone to temporarily gain Hammer's physical abilities, at the price of ending up with having the mental capacity that ranked somewhere beneath that of a cabbage. It was tailored so that only two people on Earth could use it, both of whom were sat on the very same bench…

"What would you do for me," said Horrible, shouting over Hammer's tears "if I told you that I could make you strong again?" the cries stopped immediately. Hammer gazed up at the Doctor in disbelief. His jaw slackened and his blue eyes lit up like a child who had just been told Christmas had come early.

"Anything."


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

The glass of juice crashed to the floor with a clatter that was pretty loud for something so small, and a tidal wave of slightly warm Ribena and splintered glass spread over the carpet.

"Damn it!"

Horrible's hands had been shaking violently ever since he had woken up Tuesday morning. It was even worse than the time he had been force fed twenty Lucozade tablets in seventh grade, followed by three bottles of Mountain Dew and a packet of M and M's.

He sincerely hoped that he wouldn't be in need of a stomach pump this time.

Muttering curses under his breath, the good (bad?) Doctor got to work mopping up the mess, a job unbefitting to someone at the pinnacle of their evil career, but Moist was still out and maids were bloody expensive. Unfortunately, his hands seemed to want to do some kind of jazz square, and soon a pool of red was swirling amongst the purple of the berry drink, and making a rather ugly stain on his brand new beige carpet.

"Oh crap." moaned Dr Horrible, clutching his hand, which was now spouting blood like a scarlet Niagara. He stumbled towards the kitchen, casting around for something to stem the flow.

"Plasters, plasters, where did I put those plasters?" Horrible muttered, throwing open the cupboard doors, searching for their rather large medi-kit full of water-proof bandages. They kept a lot of water-proof bandages for several reasons: one, Moist couldn't use the normal ones, for obvious reasons. Two, in a state of constant sogginess, it was expected that was Moist was going to drop things. A lot. And finally, Horrible carried out most of his experiments in their apartment. Suffice to say that keeping enough padded bandages to re-wrap the entire kingdom of Tutankhamen was probably a VERY good idea. Dr Horrible had a lot of explosives and a lot of ideas (many of which weren't legal and could land a man in hospital, or in a very deep hole).

After much searching, cursing, and spattering of internal juices onto the sparkling work surfaces, Horrible eventually found the first aid box. He was just wrapping his hand in the white linen whilst trying to get his burning slice of toast out of the toaster with a fork (don't try that at home), when his cell went off somewhere near the oven.

"They pick their times!" he muttered, abandoning his toast to the inevitable doom of cremation to grab his blaring mobile. It took him several attempts to flip it open, between his jittery fingers and well-bandaged hand.

"Dr Horrible," came the low, unmistakable voice of Professor Normal "I need you down here as soon as possible to get to work on the Resurrect-Ohm-Meter."

"Of course, of course!" he replied, trying to keep his voice steady. He had to keep calm, it was going to be fine, nobody was going to find out-

"It appears that our secrecy had been compromised, and the LAPD appear to have some idea as to what we are planning to do-"

Oh crapbag! Horrible almost dropped his phone as his hands made an involuntary jerk. They knew, they had figured out what he was going to do, he was screwed! He knew that it had been a bad idea from the start, why oh why did he ever suggest it to himself? He should just come clean, tell the ELE at the meeting, and hope that Bad Horse spared his most of his face, then leg it like there was no-

"-should all be fine, but we'd better get started sooner rather than later. I expect you here shortly."

"B-b-u-" the phone cut out just as he began to stammer his confession. He stood in silence for a moment. He racked his brains, but he was pretty sure that, during his moment of blind panic, that Normal hadn't accused him of anything. He only said that the LAPD knew about the machine. Which, in all fairness, was still his fault (stupid blog; he kept forgetting that they subscribed to him). They didn't know.

They didn't know!

Horrible let out a shaky sigh of relief. They hadn't noticed that the blue prints had gone missing, or the notes. He was okay; he just had to play it cool. Find the information, get the components, it should be plain sailing. He didn't know how long it would take, he just had to hope that Moist planned on staying at Switch's for a few weeks. His revised plan meant that it would be both easier, and harder in a way, to achieve his goal, and he could really do without Moist being around; the guy would probably freak out if he found out, or get Horrible carted of to the loony bin. Anyway, he had enough trouble with his, er, _present_ _company_ without adding Moist into the equation too.

He hurried back into the living room, which was littered with bits of scrap metal, glass, and an assortment of containers. In fact, the only space on his floor that wasn't covered in junk was the spot that had now become a congealed mess of Ribena, blood, shards and polyester fibers. It took him five whole minutes to navigate his way to his front door, snatching up his goggles on his way, which were dangling on the end of a rather bent STOP sign. He shunted the door open with a loud "Humph!" and toppled into the corridor.

"You alright sonny?"

Dr Horrible's heart pounded in his throat for a moment, but he calmed down when he saw who the voice belonged to; it was only old Miss Maury, who was blind as a bat and so deaf that you could probably hold a rave in the next room and she wouldn't hear a thing. She squinted down at the young Doctor from behind her jam-jar glasses, taking in his red lab coat and askew goggles.

The get-ups you saw young folk in these days.

"You took quite a tumble there laddy. William, isn't it m'dear?"

"Billy, actually." he corrected her, attempting to ram his glove on over his bandage.

"You kids and your nick-names." she sniffed disapprovingly. "Back in my day, we called each other by our birth names. No 'Billy's' or 'Sam's' or 'Jo's' back then. Proper English, like it should be."

"Right…" said Horrible, clambering to his feet. With a jolt of horror, he realized that the door was still ajar. He hastened to shut it properly, but even Miss Maury could see the mess from her vantage point.

"My my, your house is a complete tip!" she shook her head with distaste, jowls aquiver. "An organized room leads to an organized mind! Remember that!" and with those final words of wisdom, she trotted back off down the hall, cooing to her fat ginger tabby, Mr. Whiskers. Billy waited until he heard her door slam shut before he raced down the stairs and into the LA sunlight.

Horrible reached the subway in record time; he was so high on adrenalin that he had managed to run the ten blocks without collapsing in a dead feint, like he had done on the twelve occasions he had been forced to run cross-country in gym class during middle school. He pulled out his wallet, scooped up some dollar bills and tried to get them into the ticket machine, but he couldn't hold them steady.

"Just take them!" he cried with frustration "Eat them, you government-fuelling machine!" the thing still refused to take his cash, so Horrible vented his fury by kneeing it. It only occurred to him after he had purchased the bloody ticket (which had cost him $2.50 and possibly a kneecap) that he really ought not to of paid; he was evil, after all, and evil people do not pay to ride the subway.

Sigh...

The officer at the turnstile regarded the Doctor with great suspicion as he hobbled onto the tram. The middle-aged man fingered a pistol underneath his uniform; this guy looked like he could be an evil genius, and there was not going to be an exploding tram on his watch. Horrible noticed none of this, still cursing his stupidity, muttering "You are in the ELE. You DO NOT pay…" under his breath and wincing as he put weight on his injured limb. Luckily for him, a rather chubby woman had got lodged in a turnstile, so he was saved from the inconvenience of having a bullet put through his head on top of an achy knee.

The journey seemed faster this time, (as they always do when you don't want to get to where you're going) and in no time at all he was stood in front of the entrance to the ELE. The place looked even more eerily sinister than usual. It might have been because of the storm clouds brewing overhead, but it was probably more to do with the fact that Horrible was dreading that someone might find out about his Ultimate Plan Mark II and turn him into a rotten cabbage. The laboratory was located in the manor basement, near the tunnel that led to the nuclear warfare plant. Dr Horrible descended the stairs two at a time, until he reached two steel reinforced doors. A metal plaque was stuck onto the side of the wall:

**DANGER**

**DO NOT ENTER**

**UNSAFE EXPERIMENTS UNDERWAY**

**RESIDENT SCIENTISTS: PROF. NORMAL**

A sticky note was plastered just underneath Normal's name, which read _'and also Dr Horrible, the newbie'_. Horrible swallowed once, his palms leaking from inside his gloves, his breathing shallow and fast. If he wasn't careful, he was going to start hyperventilating and pass out, like he did the first time Penny came to the launderettes. His ears still burned at the memory; fainting at the sight of someone isn't considered a very macho thing. He really should have juggled a washing machine, or stripped off his t-shirt, which is what all the men on those surfer programmes seem to do whenever there are any girls around…

Actually, come to think of it, keeling over was probably the most impressive thing he could've managed. He supposed he could have made her a really cool weapon using Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity, but girls don't tend to find that romantic.

The doors opened with a metallic 'whoosh!' that sounded like something off of the Starship Enterprise, and Horrible found himself in the now-familiar dimly lit lab. Somewhere near the furthest tables, the Doctor could hear the mechanical click of Normal's steel hand, along with the odd muttered formula that carried across the din of the many whirring machines. Billy made his way towards the back of the lab, adjusting his goggles. Scrap metal littered the floor, but in a large space to the left of the room, a huge wire framework stretched towards the high ceiling like the claw of some beast. Normal was knelt beside it, consulting a diagram whilst he fixed the glass panels of the soon-to-be tank into place.

"Ah, you're here." he said, not looking up from his work. "Hold this for me for a moment." Normal thrust one of the green tinted plates at Dr Horrible whilst he welded some rivets into place.

"I trust that you've been looking into a way to house the power source?"

"Y-yes," stammered Horrible, trying (and failing) to keep his cool. He let out a breath. Keep calm, that was what his doctor had said, and don't let anything phase you. Don't think about the negative outcomes, focus on the positives, and nothing will go wrong. He'd tried that a million times, but it never bloody worked. No, wait. Think positive, think positive…

"Yes, I looked into that." his voice was steadier, more even. Horrible smiled a little. "We need to use a material that can withstand extreme temperatures, as low as absolute zero, and possibly as high as two thousand degrees Celsius, so I would suggest using nickel inner plates with a carbon fiber or polycarbonate outer layer, and place a layer of hyperdiamond between the two to stop us from having our hands fried off when we touch it. That should also hold the inner workings and stop the military from damaging it. The pipes, gears et cetera should be made from tungsten and carbon, with liquid sodium passing over them to keep them cool."

"Good, good," nodded Normal "that shouldn't be too problematic to obtain. We should work on the completing the container, and I will give you some further instructions when we've finished and had afternoon tea."

The rest of Horrible's time building the weird container (which looked a bit like those tanks that were in Avatar), was pretty uneventful, except from when Horrible almost did a reenactment of the medieval guillotine. Fortunately, Professor Normal's reactions were pretty good, and nobody lost their head, although Normal told the Doctor that he'd lose something else if he wasn't more careful.

As the Professor was pouring tea into two pink floral cups for their afternoon tea, he watched Horrible carefully. The man was fiddling with a chocolate digestive, crumbling it into pieces before shoving it into his mouth. Normal sighed; Horrible was too inexperienced, and to be honest, a bit of a doof. He wasn't, in his opinion, real ELE material. When he had almost beheaded Normal, instead of laughing raucously like all of the other callous, murder-loving folk in the building, he apologized again and again, like he'd done something wrong. The guy was just too, well, _nice_.

But he was all he had, and there was no WAY he was letting Jefferson back down to the lab to give him a hand. He would rather avoid having a kumquat growing out of his left nostril, thank you very much.

"So, Dr Horrible," he said, stirring his drink with his pinky finger, "how are you finding membership in the ELE? It is to your liking I presume?"

"Oh it's great; I'm making real progress with my, er, evil schemes and stuff. Getting a lot of work done, overthrowing the government plans and all that…" Normal frowned at the man sat in front of him, who, mistaking his look for a glare, stuttered and stared at the floor in a nervous silence. Bah, this guy still ought to be singing soprano in the church choir.

Meanwhile, Horrible was wondering if Normal was going to kill him there and then, or wait until he was in some deserted alley.

The latter he supposed; there would be no one to hear his girly screams…

"Well, I'd better tell you about the plans for tonight." said Normal in an almost bored voice.

"Wait, tonight?" Horrible looked shocked. "As in, carry out a heist, for an important piece of equipment for the machine? Without months of meticulous planning?"

"Tonight is as good as any other night," said Normal simply "and I would like to get this 'domination' thing out of the way as soon as possible. I find that it gets in the way of my piano recitals." he regarded Horrible for a moment, who looked like he wanted to protest. When he said nothing, Normal continued.

"I think we should start by getting one of the components for the primary generator." he said, unrolling a shopping list. On the list there was stuff like Bran Flakes and mangoes, but also the sort of thing that you probably weren't going to find at your usual Wal-Mart store; like plutonium, for instance.

"Right," said Normal, pointing a finger to an item on the list that's name was so long that it fell onto two lines "we are going to want to start with that. It's a highly unstable uranium and ununhexium compound, perfect for regenerating molecules. It steals all nearby protons and neutrons you see, it's pretty much the klepto of the chemical world." a building plan was next to the list on the table. Horrible leaned over as far as he dared, taking in the information on the sheet. To his surprise, he found that he already knew the building.

"Ah yes," nodded Normal, clocking what the Doctor was peering at "it's being housed in a disused warehouse downtown. They plan on moving it to Soviet Russia next Wednesday, we really are quite fortunate that its here, with so little protection. The government are very trusting…or foolish."

Normal wrapped up their meeting and dismissed his evil accomplice, organizing to meet him up later at the warehouse. All the way home, Horrible could only think one thought:

"How the HELL am I gonna pull this off?"

He said the words aloud as he reached his scabby apartment block (which smelt strongly of beets at that moment), but no flash of inspiration hit him. He knew that he was going to have to get the compound first, but there wasn't enough time to go down now; he'd never get back to meet the Professor without looking like he'd run a marathon. It was at times like this that he wished that he had a twin; an eviler twin, who could help him out with this sort of crap. But that would be no use. Normal would be able to trace the plan back to him; he would know that it was he, Dr Horrible, who had organized the theft. Furthermore, evil twins are either born or made, and Horrible simply didn't have the time to clone himself. Plus they tended to get mega annoying after a while…

The door opened with a click. There was only one other course of action. But although it would point the finger of blame about as far away from him as was possible, it could go horrifically wrong, seeing as though Horrible wouldn't there to supervise. He also hadn't planned on carrying out the Epic Revenge Sequence 'till later, when he would be certain that it would have maximum effect. There were no other alternatives though. He was just going to have to-

"No, no, no, no, no, no! Look what you've done; you've got crumbs all over the carpet!"

Sat on his couch, feet up (with his boots on too!), eating HIS potato chips was none other than Captain Hammer. The guy was surrounded by empty packets of food and, (gasp!) two half eaten, melting tubs of Death by Chocolate ice cream.

"Hey Doctor!" he said, cramming another handful of cheesy, processed goodness into his large maw. The ex-hero was looking a lot perkier than he had been about five days ago. It looked like he was well on his way to becoming World's Number One Git again.

Ordinarily, Horrible would have gone feral; in his opinion, melting a tub of decent Ben and Jerry's warranted capital punishment. But, sadly, he would have to refrain from throttling the tool for now. Corpses tend to suck at carrying out you're dirty work.

"For goodness sake," said Dr Horrible in exasperation, trying not to leap on the ice cream murderer. If this worked, and he still had his sanity intact by the end of it, it would be a miracle. "Stop eating my food and get up. We've got work to do, and if you expect me to uphold my end of the bargain, you'll do EXACTLY what I say." Horrible scrambled over the junk heap and into his bedroom. From under his mattress, he pulled out a small silver box, which contained a series of needles and vials.

"We've got a lot less time to prepare for the first stage of my plan than I thought, so you're gonna have to listen and try not piss it up." Hammer watched intently as his nemesis placed the box and several papers onto the cluttered coffee table. All those diagrams looked like a bunch of squiggles to him. They'd look cooler if they had lots of pretty highlighter all over them…

"Right," said Horrible, carefully taking a teeny amount of fluid out of one of the vials. "I'm just going to check how you react to the serum; it'll give you a boost in strength, so you might feel a bit weird for a moment…" without hesitation, he drove the needle into Hammer's arm, with a little more force than was necessary.

"YEOWCH!" One moment, Horrible was watching Hammer rub his arm (wit _no_ satisfaction _whatsoever; _well, ok maybe a bit) and then suddenly, the Doctor felt himself being lifted off of his feet and slammed into the wall. Captain Hammer had him around the throat, and was slowly squeezing the air out of him.

"Ah ha!" he cried, relishing in his new found strength. It felt so good to be special and uba strong again. This possibly called for a musical number! "Did you expect me to do whatever you said, Dr Horrible? I planned for you to give me the strengthy potion thing, and then I was going to leave, but not before choking you like-"

Unfortunately for Hammer, the evil mastermind hadn't been a complete dolt. He had expected some sort of trouble from Hammer when he first gave him his strength back, and had hidden the antidote up his sleeve. So whilst Hammer had been contemplating his victory, Horrible had been stabbing him repeatedly with the Strength Reducing Serum. Which, luckily for Horrible, wasn't as faulty as his Freeze Ray.

"Wha-wha-wha?" garbled Hammer as Horrible (with some effort, as he was still a weedy little spec) pushed the great lump off of him, massaging his neck. Really, he should have thought to of put on some kind of neck shield on too.

"This is- this is _why_ you are gonn-gonna cooperate with me." wheezed the Doctor, coughing a bit like a demented sea-lion. "The strength serum CAN be reversed, and it isn't permanent. So if you want to be Mr. Muscle again, you are going to have to follow my instructions."

Hammer frowned and nodded. Oh darn, it looked like he was going to have to work with Mr. Einstein bossy bum after all. "So what's you're plan then?" he asked resignedly.

Horrible laughed. "Like I'm going to tell you. You just do what I say, that's all you need to know." he shuffled through the tottering pile of papers (and there seemed to be enough there to explain the disappearances of the rainforests), pulling out building plans and some illustrations of a weird cube structure.

"Listen up," said Horrible, clicking his figures at the now zoned-out Captain, "because we've only got three hours to get this straight. And if you mess it up, I know that something won't be you're Hammer anymore…"


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

**Sorry for the massivly long wait for this chap, I've been in South Africa for a month doing aid work, so no computers. Or working showers...  
Anyway, I hope you like it and please don't forget to review. They make my day =)**

Squeak. Squeak. Squeak!

Horrible's head snapped around for what felt like the millionth time in the space of ten minutes. Hammer was tiptoeing around the outside corner of the warehouse just behind him, but his boots were making enough noise to wake the dead!

This was the reason why he told his mother that it was a bad idea to polish his stupid school shoes.

"Can you keep it down a bit? We need to enter the building undetected for this to work, and that's never going to happen with you making such a racket! Stealth is the key to success." hissed Horrible, before promptly walking headlong into a lamppost. He froze like a deer in a set of headlights, and then legged it around to the rear entrance, with the squeaking Hammer in tow. Their journey to the disused warehouse had been quiet. Too quiet. Dr Horrible was starting to get the jitters; in his vast experience of stealing highly dangerous chemicals, he had never ever EVER not had to duck dive and dodge an army of guards wielding guns that made an AK47 look like a water pistol.

Warily, the Doctor beckoned his rather bulky assistant over to the corrugated wall. The sun was just starting to set, casting half shadows over the concrete yard of the warehouse. Horrible knew that he didn't have long to set Hammer off; the guy would need a decent head start, and Normal was due to be there shortly.

"Ok, you know the plan." whispered Horrible, handing a map over to the Captain. The semi-darkness made the guy look even bigger than usual. And that was pretty big if you were a 5ft 5" midget. "You need to go in, get the glowing cube container, and get back out without getting caught. I'll try to stall Normal as much as I can, but you need to be fast. You've probably got about a half hour head start, and it could take you about two hours to get the compound."

Captain Hammer glared at Horrible with an almost child like sulky expression on his face.

"And what happens if I don't get your compy thing for you?"

"You don't ever get you're strength back." said Horrible simply. Hammer grumbled with indignation.

"Don't see why you can't do it your self…"

"Because," said Billy, his patience beginning to wear "I've got to go in with Normal to get the compound, or else he's going to know that something is up." Dr Horrible quickly withdrew the vial of serum from with his pocket and injected a sufficient amount into the hero's arm.

"Now get going!" reluctantly, Hammer trudged towards the peeling door a few yards away from them, and stepped across the threshold.

* * *

The place was, like, really dark and creepy and stuff, and Hammer didn't like it one little bit. He'd ignored the evil scientist when he had complained about his boots squeaking (he always polished them so that he could see his beautiful manly features in them), but in this spooky warehouse, they echoed off of every wall, making it sound more like someone was playing the violin really badly with his every step. Hammer cracked his knuckles in anticipation for the first guard dude, relishing his strength again. He knew that he was gonna have to do bad stuff to keep his strength, but as soon as that Dr Horrible was done with him, he'd make it up to the civilians. He'd buy them all ice cream cones, and then everything would be fine and dandy again. A flash light swept across the hallway just in front of him, and Hammer froze. Tentatively, he continued forward, aware that the light was getting brighter and brighter. Suddenly, it swung around and blinded him as the torch holder turned the corner.

"What yer doin' here?" came a voice from behind all the shininess. Hammer squinted at his confronter, and could just about make out the smooth egg shape of someone who wasn't blessed with such thick, wafty hair like his. Hammer could see that the man (who looked to be about sixty, which is mega old) had attempted a comb over with his five remaining hairs. It's probably quite obvious that it didn't exactly cover his bald spot. Actually, he probably had less of a bald spot, more a hair spot.

"Yer not supposed to be down here," wheezed the man, his torch trembling as he let out a hacking cough. "It's off limits, see."

"I'm a tourist," said Hammer, which was the first thing that cropped into his mind "I've come to look at your lovely warehouse place and see the big shiny cube thing, but I've lost my group."

Had Hammer said this to any of the other guards on duty that day, he would have found himself with more holes in his torso than there are in a sieve. Rather fortunately, the man he had encountered happened to be on a par with him in intelligence.

"Ah, all right then, I'd better let you be on yer way." The man shuffled out of Hammer's way, and gestured down the corridor. "The container is down the left corridor, then you gotta take some first rights, a couple of second lefts and through a few reinforced doors. Shouldn't take yer too long." Hammer gave the man a quick smile, and started off at a trot down the corridor.

"I hope yer find yer tourist group!"

Turning the corner, Hammer couldn't help but grin. This was going to be as easy as pie. And by pie, he meant the one that was full of berries and pastry and stuff, not the math one. Math was hard, and it didn't taste half as good.

* * *

The moment Hammer had gone, Billy had raced around to the front of the building, which was actually quite a distance, to meet up with his ELE mad scientist buddy. By the front entrance, a couple of guards were stood leaning against railings in what looked like a drunken stupor. Their eyes were glazed over, seeing nothing, and their mouths drooped slightly. A rope of saliva dangled from the maw of the burly looking one. Horrible grimaced, recognizing their state, and quickly began to cast around for other signs of life. This was going to make things a hell of a lot trickier…

He half hoped that his suspicions were incorrect, but, sure enough, two shadows lurked near the entrance door. The Doctor strode towards them, and watched as they acknowledged his arrival.

"Ah, you're here at last." whispered Professor Normal, stretching out his mechanical hand in greeting. Tentatively, Billy clenched it, worried that Professor Normal might decide to turn his hand into mashed potato. "As you can see, I've asked Bowie to assist us with our little task, as I'm sure that you'll agree that his hypnotic skills will be invaluable." Horrible nodded feverantly, and hoped that Hammer was running like there was no tomorrow. It looked like he was going to have to do some serious stalling…

"So," said Bowie, clapping his hands together. In the distance, the two hypnotized guards shuffled away obediently "shall we get this show on the road? I haven't got all day you know."

"Yes yes, alright then." muttered Normal. "Do you have your rays Horrible?"

"Yeah, I've got a couple," he replied, lifting the duffle bag that was hanging off his shoulder a little higher. "I've brought the Freeze Ray, Reductor Beam and the Paralysis Gun." Normal raised an eyebrow at him, and Horrible quickly took out his Reductor Beam and tossed it to the Professor. Horrible's aim was erratic, and unless they wanted to be in a girder sandwich, it was best that the other scientist had the thing that could disintegrate crap.

Normal caught the gun with ease and weighed it in his hands, getting a feel for its balance. Lazily, he pointed it at a nearby rock. With a hiss that sounded like a cross between a can of coke opening and a loud raspberry being blown, the boulder dissolved into a small pile of fine dust.

"It'll do." said Normal, hoisting the gun onto his shoulder. "Shall we proceed as planned men? I've spared you the trouble of explaining the details of our operation to Bowie, Horrible. I thought that it would speed this along a bit. Heists do tend to drag terribly." Together, the three men traipsed into the building, Dr Horrible lagging somewhat behind the other two. In that brilliant little mind of his, those little grey cells were going into overdrive in order to come up with an idea that would stall Bowie and Normal long enough for Hammer to get the compound. And of course, as is what always happens in times when you _really_ have to come up with an idea pronto, or else face imminent failure, he could only think of one thing:

'_If you cross a donkey and a zebra, is it a zonkey or a debra?' _

Billy managed to shake this intriguing notion off once he passed a third guard who was slumped over a fire extinguisher just inside the entrance of the warehouse.

"Hello han…hand….hansel…handsome…" murmured the guard through his delirium, flapping a beefy hand at the passing men. The former two snickered at the guard, who was now trying to make out with the red fire extinguisher. Horrible, on the other hand, was staring at the guard, a ghost of smile on his lips. It wouldn't be hard to imagine a little light bulb being switched on just above his head.

Carefully, making sure that neither of his ELE friends saw him, the Doctor dug a hand into one of the outer pockets of his coat. Rooting around, he frowned. Shucks. Nothing but a Cadbury chocolate wrapper and a cat toy in that one. He quickly thrust a fist into the second pocket; keys…shoelace…deflated balloon…computer mouse…nose hair clippers…eureka! As quietly as he could, Billy withdrew a battered, slightly damp (and probably really stale) packet of gram crackers. Snapping the first biscuit in half, Horrible tossed it on the floor, followed by the second part of it a few meters down the corridor. The other two evil masterminds were to busy discussing what takeout they were going to order when they got back home to notice what the Bad Doctor was doing.

"I'd prefer a Chinese tonight, if you really don't mind." drawled Normal in his low voice. "I had an Indian the other day, and too many curries tend to make my stomach a bit iffy."

"Whatever. So long as I can order those Cantonese sweet and sour pork balls again; Fouking Chinese makes them real nice." Normal nodded in agreement, and then turned to Horrible.

"What do you want?" he asked, making Billy jump so high that he almost smacked his head on the ceiling.

"What do I want?" reiterated Horrible, his voice breaking halfway through the sentence as he tried to hide the crackers.

"Chinese." sighed Bowie, rolling his eyes. "I know I may be dead, but I've still got to eat, and so do you. Another number 34 for you?"

"Yeah, that'll be fine." replied Horrible shakily. His colleagues shared a glance. Seriously, how on Earth did this guy into the ELE? If they hadn't known that he'd murdered that girl, they would have thought that he'd wandered in there by mistake.

To Horrible's dismay, the men made quick progress through the labyrinth of corridors within the warehouse. They hadn't bumped into any guards so far, and his trail didn't seem to be attracting anyone. Although nobody seemed to be tailing them, Billy carried on dropping his trail of breadcrumbs (well, cracker-crumbs) just in case. You never know, maybe they were being followed by an army of stealthy ninja guards. Unlikely, but hey. This was the only plan he had, so he had to give it a shot.

"SHIT!" Bowie stopped so abruptly in his tracks that Horrible walked right into the back of him. Dazed, the Doctor slowly got back to his feet, trying to peer around the undead singer to see what was up.

"Well, we didn't expect this." murmured Normal. He stepped aside to allow his other doctor friend to see what the issue was. "I don't suppose you have anything in that gym bag that can sort this out, do you?"

Before them, an array of beams barricaded their path forwards. Horrible could see the numerous sensors that surrounded the walls, and knew that by breaking one of those beams for just a moment would trigger the alarm system to activate, bringing all the hounds of hell down on them. The Doctor had to refrain from whooping with glee; at last, something that would allow Hammer to get to the compound first! Normally, he'd crack out the Raspberry Ripple at such a celebratory moment, but the other two might find that a bit weird. Not to mention the stuff in his pocket had probably melted a while ago.

"This could take a while." murmured Normal, bending to examine the beams. "To reconfigure the settings and render the defense system inactive could take up to an hour, and one slip could bring all of the security right to us."

"Couldn't we just use mirrors?" asked Bowie, peering down the dark corridor.

"This isn't a Bond movie," said Horrible, raising an eyebrow and trying to hide his smirk. "That sort of stuff doesn't work; believe me, I've tried."

"How about an alternative path? One that isn't blocked by sensory beams?"

"It is unlikely," said Normal, still examining the sensors "that there is a path that is not covered by such beams. We are probably mere minutes away from the compound; security will be at its maximum. And I daren't use the Reductor Beam, as we haven't got a clue what's on the other sides of these walls. Not to mention the numerous structural weaknesses that such an old building is likely to have. The power of the beam could bring the entire building to the ground…"

Horrible turned away from the other two, looking like he'd just been slapped with a wet haddock. He hadn't thought that the back route would be covered as securely, considering how indirect it was. What would Hammer do when he met this obstacle?

The Doctor grimaced; that really didn't bear thinking about.

* * *

Hammer skipped around the bend, whistling his favorite tune. This had been pips, as he knew it would be. This stealing stuff business was sooo easy, he really didn't get why Dr Horrible spent so much time flapping about it. All you had to do was follow some corridors, knock some folk out and you were done. Easy, peasy lemon squeezy. A five year old child could do it. Although they would have to wait until WAY after their bed-time before they could sneak out.

There were just a couple of more little corridor things to go before the hall place where the Doctor had said the glowy box was, he was sure of it. Around this corner, up a flight of stairs then-

Oh. What was this? Blocking the path in front of him was a bunch of green coloured beams, crisscrossing the corridor. They looked kinda pretty, maybe they were a Christmas decoration? Hammer bent closer to look at them. Whatever they were, he didn't think that he could punch his way through them. He also wasn't a complete fool; after his mishap with Horrible's Death Ray, he had no intention of messing with the lights. Who knew what nasty things they could do? Unless they were just Christmas fairy lights, in which case…

No. He wasn't going to touch. His mother always told him not to play with things that he didn't know what they could do, and, for the first time in his life, he listened to that advice. A sudden burst of common sense, or divine intervention? Who knows. But Hammer carefully looked around the area for an alternative route to the glowy box, avoiding the sensory beams. After fruitlessly searching the walls for a dumbwaiter (like they'd have one of those in a warehouse), the Captain glanced up. Ah ha! There was a grate just over his head that probably led to an air vent or something. He crouched low, and then sprung up like a jackalope, punching the grate out of the ceiling and propelling himself into the small ventilation shaft. My, this was a small space for someone with such gloriously large muscles! With caution, the tightly wedged Hammer wiggled his way along the air vent, using his fingers to help shuffle himself forwards. The airless hole was seriously hot; it was like being in a sauna. Soon, the ex-hero was grunting from exhaustion and slipping from the sweat. He didn't fancy doing this every day of the week…

Captain Hammer was about three quarters of the way across the shaft when in started creaking. Hammer gulped. It didn't look like this small metal tunnel could hold his bulk for much longer. If he didn't get out soon, he could fall and get hurt. Or worse, muck up his hair! In a fit of desperation, Hammer squirmed forwards like a snake, trying to cover as much ground as he could, but failing due his moist slippyness. Unfortunately, he also hadn't thought that thrashing around was actually going to bring the vent down sooner rather than later. So obviously, just moments before he reached the end…

BOOM! The entire structure plummeted to the ground, right on top of the green beams.

Oh poo.

Sirens blared all around him, and the beams shut off quite suddenly. Hammer dusted himself off and waited for the first mean-faced guard to round the corner so that he could punch his lights out. But none came. Confused, Hammer listened intently to the message being screeched by the intercom:

"_Intruders in Bay Seven of the West Wing! Intruders in Bay Seven of the West Wing! All units alert__...!"_

"Never…Eat…Shredded…Wheat…" muttered Captain Hammer, making a little cross in the air. That was odd. He was pretty sure that he was in the _East_ wing of the building…

* * *

"Oh balls. I am _sooooo_ sorry. I did _not_ mean to do that."

Dr Horrible was laid, sprawled, on the floor where he had 'tripped' over Professor Normal's tool kit. Desperate times had called for desperate measures.

"You moron! You absolute imbecile! Now every guard in the vicinity will be on our tail!" Normal spat puce curses at his Horrible companion, but the Doctor turned a blind eye. Or a deaf ear. He just hoped that Hammer getting the compound first was really worth making Professor Normal seriously pissed.

"It's OK Normal, take a chill pill. At least we got rid of the beams." Bowie strode across the corridor with a new purpose in his step. "Besides, this will make it all the more interesting! Let's give these men a reason to fear Bad Horse and the ELE!" A couple of armed guards rounded the corner, but were under the singer's spell quicker than you could say 'The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars'.

Normal shot Horrible a venomous look, to which the Doctor flinched a little. If looks could kill…

Sighing the Professor turned on heel to follow Dead Bowie, Dr Horrible's footsteps echoing not far behind his own. That man was a danger to the ELE; he had jeopardized this simple task. Horrible seemed to mean well, but he stood by what he had said when Jefferson and Fury Leika had suggested Dr Horrible should join the ELE; that guy should be boxed up and shipped to the Congo where the only things he could hurt would be himself and a babbling band of baboons.

Ahead, Bowie ascended the stairs two at a time, coming to a halt when he finally reached the top.

"I see it!" he hissed, crouching low so as not to be spotted, and pointing at the pit that was situated below the balcony. Dr Horrible slowly approached the railings, giving Normal a wide birth. He wouldn't put it past him to throw him over the edge of their balcony. Craning down into the large pit area, Billy could easily see the compound, its cube box aglow with radioactive power. An army of guards surrounded it, each clutching a gun that looked like it could leave a nice apple-sized hole in your head. The guards seemed twitchy, and were shouting instructions to one another, although their words couldn't be heard over the din of the alarm system.

"Now how are we going to do this…" muttered the Professor to himself. A string of angles, trajectories and measurements tumbled out of his mouth for the next few minutes. Horrible barely heard any of them; where was Hammer? The Doctor's palms were becoming slipperier than an eel that had been rolled in lard.

"We could use the Reductor Beam to remove the glass casing, and then, using the Paralysis Gun and this little Anti-Gravity Device I have, we could-"

A commotion from down the staircase startled the three evil masterminds. Someone, or something was moving around in the corridor downstairs. Normal stopped muttering and leaned closer to the stairs and the other two, who were already listening with worried expressions.

"Here's another one! A trail of crackers! Boris, I think they must be on the balcony." A dog bayed nearby, and the sound of hurried footsteps grew closer. Horrible felt his heart leap somewhere into the region of his throat. He could probably kiss his ass goodbye…

"They know we're here, you need to hurry Normal! I can't control every guard in this place!"

"I know, I know!" snapped the Professor. "Let me just-"

An almighty bang from across the room made all three men jump like shell shocked cats for the second time in the space of a minute. Clutching his heart, Bowie peered into the gloom.

"What the-?"

The guards were in uproar, racing towards the East side of the hall. Someone, a very tall someone, was darting across the room, knocking the guards aside like bowling pins. Several rushed forward to stop the figure, but were greeted with what looked like half a door being thrown right into their faces. Ouch. Guns fired, but they missed their target, soaring well overhead and ricocheting off of the walls. In a matter of moments, the person had crossed the hall and leapt upon the podium where the compound was placed. Breaking the protective casing with a gloved fist, the mad tore the compound's box from its holding. The guards went mental, as did the alarms, which began wailing even louder. The ELE members on the balcony watched on gob-smacked. Even Dr Horrible, who had been expecting this, was stunned by the ease that his arch-nemesis had retrieved the compound.

Hmm, maybe having that guy around wasn't so bad after all…

"Dr Horrible!" came Hammer's booming voice, beginning the speech that they had agreed on beforehand. "Thanks to your little blog, I have found out about your mean plot to take over the world. I have taken this compy thing to make sure that you and your Evil League of Evil pals don't carry out your awful and nasty plans! I will always be here to save the day and foil your heists! You may have beaten me once, but I'm back, and it won't ever, ever, ever, in your long legged life happen again, for I am Captain Hammer, the greatest Tool to walk the planet since the Michelin Man! So I suggest you give up and go home to cry to your mummy!" and with that, Hammer booted a guard in the face and swept out of the hall, the guards stumbling over one another to get to him.

Normal stood, staring at the hole in the wall where Captain Hammer had just leapt through. The Reductor Beam and the Paralysis Gun hung limp in either hand, useless. Two confused guards and a cross-eyed beagel joined them on the balcony. With a slightly dead look in his eyes, Normal paralysed all three of them before they could even understand what was going on.

"Well," said Professor Normal, breaking the rather awkward silence that lingered in the air, "thanks to your little, er, _friend_, Dr Horrible, we seem to have been set back a little in our plans. Not to worry, I'm sure we can find another highly dangerous unobtainable compound _somewhere_ in LA." Normal stomped his foot once, and charged down the stairs, kicking at the walls in his fury. That Dr Horrible was going to rue the day he first shuffled into the ELE headquarters! Since day one, all he had done was mess up plan after plan after plan! Somehow, that foolish Horrible had alerted Captain Dung-Brains to their plan, and now they would be lucky if they weren't dogged by that brainless git everywhere they went now. They would be the laughing stock at the ELE after this failure! Normal wouldn't be able to look Jefferson in the eye for weeks. Snake Bite would tease him endlessly. He would look like a complete fool, all thanks to Horrible and his many piss ups. And _nobody_ made Professor Normal look like a fool, not unless they didn't want to live long…

Whilst Normal was down stairs, raging away, Bowie and Horrible remained stood by the balcony. The pair winced as Normal screamed the many rather painful things that he would like to do to Horrible. Horrible shuddered as he imagined how very painful indeed it would be to have a rhinoceros inserted down south.

"I think he's mad." said Bowie, stating the obvious.

"What should I do?"

Bowie listened to Normal's rant, flinched, then said "If I were you, I'd stay clear of the beans!"


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

**Sorry for the massive delay in posting this chapter, it's actually been sitting on my computer for an age, I just never got around to posting it, what with exams and the like (grr Physics...). Anyway, I thank the nice people who reviewed; they make me smile! =)**

**On that not, to the person who reckons I nicked this story from elsewhere... really? Plagiarism is just not my style! I do this lark for fun (wow, that makes me feel kinda sad), and there is nothing remotely 'creative' about stealing someone elses creative writing...that would just be boring. But, the concern for wellbeing of other writers is appreciated. It's nice to know that people do care about us fan ficcy writers.**

**Anyway, without further ado, Chapter 6! I hope you like it! =)**

Dr Horrible headed off home as soon as he made it out of the building, wisely opting out of going to Normal's place fro a celebratory meal. He had a feeling that he would find that his chicken fried rice had been laced with arsenic had he gone. It was probably safer just to get a TV dinner when he got back to his apartment.

The door was ajar when he got there; stupid Hammer, he probably forgot to close the thing when he got in with the compound. Pulling his goggles off his face, the Doctor entered his cluttered house. Hmm, the place was dark, apart from the blaring television. In its light, he could see Hammer intently watching some rubbish soap opera.

"Hey, how come you didn't turn on the-" suddenly, Horrible was blinded by the main light flicking on. But Hammer hadn't moved.

"Who are you?" he cried, still blinded by the sudden brightness. He stumbled as an armada of floaters clouded his vision.

"Oh, he's some guy I met in the warehouse when I was getting your compy thing for you; he said that he wanted to meet 'the great Dr Horrible' in person." said Hammer, eyes still glued to the set. "I think he said his name was Donny Joe?"

"Johnny Snow!" came an irritated voice from somewhere in front of the Doctor. "And I'm here to do battle with my arch nemesis!"

Shielding his eyes from the glare of the light, Billy could just about make out the gangly figure in front of him, his hands clutching a large ray gun not unlike the ones that the Doctor constructed.

"This place is a bit of a mess," said Snow, casting around at the heaps of junk that littered the place. "You really should tidy up when you're expecting guests." he took a step closer, bits of metal crunching under his feet. "A shame you won't be around to; I just hope the Movers don't get hurt when they come to take your stuff back to your mother; it's all that'll be left of you for her to remember you by!" Johnny Snow hoisted the gun higher and pointed it right at Horrible's face.

"Prepare to experience the Big Freeze!" The machine in his hands whirred threateningly, and Billy ducked, just in time too. A beam, electric blue in colour, streaked across the room, hitting a picture on Horrible's wall and incasing it in ice. Taking aim again at the slightly stunned Doctor, Snow reenergized his Ice Gun. This was it, no more plotting, no more waiting in parks for the Evil Doctor to show. He was going to defeat his nemesis and get into the Council of Champions, he was sure of it this time; no Flaming morons to get in the way this time. Dr Horrible wasn't going to get away today, either; he wasn't going to hide in the shadows any longer, he wasn't going to be doing any more evil deeds. Johnny Snow was going to walk away from this battle victorious. The people of the city would rejoice having been saved from the scientist that had been terrorizing them endlessly, they would toast his name and mark that epic day as The Johnny Snow Victory Day. There would be flags and banners with his face on them! Horrible was going down, down, DOW-

Now, whilst Johnny Snow had been having his internal monologue, Dr Horrible had been very busy. He had made himself a slice of toast, for starters. He had also plugged in his iPod, set up the Freeze Ray on its stand, whistled all three movements of Mozart's Symphony Number 40 in G minor and then fired the beam at the would-be hero. Suffice to say, there would never be a day known as Johnny Snow Victory Day.

Sighing, Dr Horrible turned his attention to the other 'hero' in the room, who hadn't moved a muscle since Snow had attempted to turn Horrible into a flesh-flavored popsicle.

"You know," said Horrible, standing in front of the TV, amidst Hammer's protests, 'this place isn't a Half-Way House for Hopeless Heroes! You don't just invite random people into my house!"

"Okay, okay, fine!" whined Hammer, trying to peer around the folds of the Doctor's lab coat. "Can you move now? I wanna see if Ross and Rachel get back together!" grumbling, Horrible leapt over the clutter to examine the immobile Snow. Now what on Earth was he going to do with him? Deciding that he might use him as a center piece at some presentation at a later date, Horrible started towards his bedroom, but a beeping sound caught his attention. Oh, a new text on his phone. Flipping it open, Horrible began to read:

'_Hey doc_,' it read, '_gonna b bak_ _bout 10. Hope ur evil stuff went ok. _

_Moist.'_ Confused, Dr Horrible looked at his watch. It stated that it was about quarter to eleven…

With a slight feeling of foreboding, the Doctor strode through the house, opening all the doors as he went. Kitchen-no one there but some rather fat looking mice. His room- just the mutant mould from his old Petri dish. Secret Evil Lair behind the vault door- nothing there, either. He tried every single room, every nook and cranny, even the airing cupboard with the half rotten wolverine in it. No one. The only human life forms (and that was seriously debatable) he could find were Hammer and the frozen Johnny Snow in the living room. But where…?

As Horrible checked behind the fridge again, he heard a slight muffled yelp. Pausing, he listened more carefully. Yes, there it was, coming from somewhere near…the sink? With a look of disbelief on his face, Billy tore the doors of the sink cupboard open. Somehow (and he _really_ didn't want to know how), Johnny Snow seemed to have overpowered Moist (which, to be fair, wouldn't have been that hard), bound and gagged him with duct tape and then stuffed him under the sink. Horrible hadn't the foggiest how Snow had managed to shove him in there, between the bottles of Mr Muscle Sink and Drain Unblocker and the array of old pipes. Moist made an urgent grunt, tearing the Doctor out of his wonderings long enough to rip the tape off of his mouth.

"YEOWCH!"

Oops. It was a good thing that Moist didn't like having a mustache…

"What the HELL is going on, Doc?" gasped a slightly miffed Moist, trying to winkle his way out of the confined space. Billy grabbed hold of Moist's shoulders, and after a couple of harsh tugs, the henchman fell out of the cupboard with a loud 'thunk!'.

"Why," started the profusely perspiring man, attempting to wriggle free of his bindings, "was Captain Hammer in our apartment? Have you gotten rid of him? Was he part of an ambush or something, Doc? If he's still there, I can go moisten him up. I'll probably gross him out enough to make him-"

"Hammer is staying with us." cut in Dr Horrible, tearing the duct tape off of the flabbergasted Moist's wrists "At least for the mean time. There's been a lot going on whilst you've not been here, and I'll explain in a minute, just-"

"You _invited_ that guy here?" asked Moist in disbelief. "After everything he's done to you? To us? I wouldn't have thought you'd want that guy in a ten block radius of you."

"Please, listen a sec, I had this plan, see, an important one, whilst you were gone. I needed someone to help me-"

"So you asked _him_?"

"It's all a part of the plan Moist. I gave him the strength injection, he was going to help me get all the parts, I had it all sussed out, Normal and the others were never going to know, not until the aftermath at least-"

"Wait, what's this got to do with the ELE? Doc, you can't do anything that will interfere with the ELE, not unless you wanna get kicked out and get yourself Death Whinnied to Timbuktu and back! Add Hammer into all this, this is not good, not good at all, why didn't you-"

"Will you just _listen _to me for-?"

"-tell me about all this? I'm meant to be your henchman! What kind of plan could be so important that you'd risk getting booted from the ELE, risk everything you've ever-"

"IT WOULD BRING HER BACK!" a heavy silence hung in the air, the awkwardness quite obvious by the way that villain and henchman were staring at the floor, both embarrassed for the former of the two. In the front room, the TV blared on. Hammer was still oblivious to the world, still too engrossed in the rerun of _Friends _to hear the little spat that Moist and Horrible were having in the next room. Some are just blessed with selective hearing. Moist feverantly wished he was at this point. They had been down this road _way_ too many times…

"Aw jeez, Doc." said Moist, slicking back his slippery mop, looking on at Billy (who was now crouched on the floor next to him, his head in his hands) with a sympathetic expression. "You've got to stop doing this; it's not good for you. It was bad enough when she was around, when you were obsessing over getting up the guts to talk to her, but Penny's dead, you've got to let it go. You can't bring her back! Maybe we should get you to another shrink, maybe they can help-"

"They can't help," sighed the Doctor, fighting to keep his voice steady. He kept his palms in front of his face, scared that his stinging eyes were soon going to open the flood gates. "It's something I _have _to do, I can't just leave it, I can't just forget about Penny and pretend that she didn't exist when I know there is away that I could bring her back. And there is a way, a part of an ELE global take over mission. I tried to leave it, when Normal first said about a method of bringing back the dead, I tried not to even consider bringing her back, and that lasted all of about five minutes. Do you want to know why? Do you want to know why I couldn't just let it go?" Billy lifted his head to look his friend in the eye, even though his own were brimming over. Moist remained silent, unsure of what on Earth he should be doing right now. He was pretty sure that he should give the Doc a Kleenex, but he only had used ones…

"It's because I never knew." muttered Horrible, trying to compose himself. He wiped away the tears with his sleeve, and steadied his voice. "I never knew if she felt the same way I…if she loved me. Because I loved her. I know that's dumb, I know that I only had about a handful of conversations with her that didn't contain the words 'nuffle mrrrffle '. I know that we were only at the Laundromat together for about six months, and I know that she was with Hammer, but I did, and I still do. And if there is a way…" he trailed off, running a hand through his hair and breathing fairly heavily. Moist remained silent, still sat on the floor. Man, this was pretty heavy stuff for listening to just minutes after you'd been rescued from a stinking cupboard. Full of spiders…shudder…

"Doc?"

"Mmmhmm?"

Moist paused, trying to think what to say next. He was hopeless at this sort of thing, he really was. After over a minute of wondering what sort of thing would be comforting and constructive for the villain, the only thing he could come up with was "Would you like a hug?"

"Nah, Moist, I'm good. I only just took a shower, so you know…"

"Yeah. Okay then. I'll just go into the living room, get, um, acquainted with our guest, let you get on with…what you need to get on with." With that, Moist trudged out of the kitchen, leaving Horrible to do what he may. The end credits on the TV were just rolling as he entered the cluttered place. Moist looked around and sighed. He didn't know what sort of machine could raise the dead, but he didn't think any device that required a microwave, a STOP sign and half the engine from a Mazda could be a good one…

Shifting some of the junk off of the dusty sofa, Moist sank down on his regular cushion, just to the left of Captain Hammer. The guys eyes were still glued to the set as the _CSI NY _theme tune blared from the speakers.

"So…" said Moist, casting around for a good conversation starter. There were none. So he stated the most obvious fact he could:

"You're Captain Hammer…" A non committal grunt was all he got in reply. Well duh, that was possibly the stupidest thing he could've said.

They were of to a great start.

"You're a super hero." Obvious fact number two. Jeez, he needed more material. Something with a little more depth… Preferably something that wouldn't get him beaten up, too.

"Do you like crime shows then? Being a super hero and all…?"

"Yeah, they're cool." A verbal answer! Moist decided he was going to play with that a bit, now that he'd found some ground. Albeit a very tiny spec of it.

"You got a favorite? Personally, I think that Castle is the best-"

"Castle?" exclaimed the hero, his full attention now on Moist. "I love that show. The guy on it, main character, author dude, can't remember his name-"

"Castle?"

"That's the one! He's so ruggedly handsome, with such perfectly chiseled features and wonderful hair. And such a dazzling smile! Not to mention, he's witty and hilarious. That guy cracks me up every time I watch the show; it's really rare that you get an actor that's funny AND handsome. What I wouldn't give to meet a guy who looked just like him…"

Meanwhile, whilst Moist and Hammer were discussing plot points of the hit crime show, (he could understand a confusing murder show, yet he couldn't spell his own name?) Horrible was busy tinkering away with something in his bedroom. A big something. A mound twisted metal took up most of the floor space in the Doctor's cramped room, mysterious whirrings and tickings issuing from various parts of the weird monstrosity that loomed over the mad scientist. With a spanner in one hand, and a welding torch in the other, Billy dove into the mechanical heart of his machine, fiddling with a few gears and welding a couple of pipes to one another. One of the massive blueprints lay on the floor by his feet, but the original diagram was almost lost, drowned in Horrible's own annotations and adjustments. In fact, Dr Horrible had practically redesigned the Resurrect-Ohm-Meter, compressing it so that it would squeeze into his cubby-hole of a room. A tank far smaller than the one Normal had constructed was linked to the machine by a botch of wires and pipes. The scientist had altered the settings of the device considerably by making the selectable commands more precise, more tailored to it's…purpose. He had changed the shape and the innards of the thing so that it was literally unrecognizable from the original drawings. A bit like a mutant spawn from the first machine Normal had created. Except machines don't have kids…

With a loud clank, Horrible tumbled out of the belly of his construction, his face caked in a layer of oil. Balls, that always happened. He really could do with a mask. Wiping the worst of the grime from his face, he consulted his blue prints. There was still a long way to go; the shell of the machine was done, but the most important components were still missing. A gloved finger trailed down the To Buy/Steal/Borrow Without Permission list. He had that…got them…still needed those…eh? What were Cheetos doing on the list? Cross them off…need one more of those and- oh darn! The Doctor dropped the list, and began to sift through one of the piles of junk by his bed. Oh man! He couldn't believe he had forgotten to get those! If he had turned the machine without those, he could've said goodbye to his ass. And face. Heck, his entire body for that matter…

Dr Horrible sank onto the small patch of his bed that wasn't littered with diagrams and doodles, his eyes scanning the rest of the list. This was going to take a lot of hard work and time to get right; everything had to be perfect, it just had to be! He couldn't settle for second rate. This was _the_ chance- the final chance- for him to get Penny back. Billy knew that there were no other options, that this was it. All this fiddling with intricate mechanisms, deceiving Bad Horse and his Evil League of Evil, and all the getting up at the crack of dawn to sneak into nuclear power houses, would definitely be worth it is he could have his Laundromat buddy/ only love back.

Wouldn't it?

The picture of Penny came out of his coat pocket once more, and Billy stared at it, wondering what he would do, what he would say, when (not if; he was practicing his positive thinking) he brought Penny back from the dead. He would hold her if she cried (well, being dead tends to take a lot out of you), he would tell her how much he cared about her, explain what he had done. Then, he would take her to the park, cook her waffles; they would go back to the Laundromat and eat frozen yoghurt whilst they waited for the cranky machines to spew their laundry back out. Billy would be the perfect gentleman, he would take her on peddle boat rides, walk her to her job at the Caring Hand's Homeless Shelter, go on holiday to the Maldives with her, take her his most ultimate heists-

Well, maybe not the last one. That might freak her out a bit. But he'd give her everything Hammer ever did, and more. There was no way she could say no to him, right? The old fears bubbled up, but he pushed them back down. No, no, she would accept him, she would! Once she realized just how much he… She would love him back, definitely she would...hopefully. He knew everything about her off by heart; her favorite books in order, films, foods (frozen yoghurt, of course). It was easy for him to imagine her in front of him, the exact smell of her strawberry shampoo, the way she stood, everything!

Horrible sighed; Moist was right; he was obsessing WAY too much. Maybe that would scare her off. She would head for the hills, and run right into Hammer's arms, Penny would-

"Stop!" cried Horrible, clapping his hands to his face. "Don't think about any of it! Just get the job done, Billy, don't think about anything that may or may not happen!" He took one last look at Penny's picture before stowing it back in his pocket. Horrible stared at the machine in front of him, trying to absorb himself in what he should do next, but the thought of Penny going back to Hammer gnawed away at him. He could see the great dolt's face looming in front of him, sneering at him like had done when the pair had met at the Laundromat when Hammer was dating Penny…

"Hammer!" he called, striding out of his room. The Captain was still sat by the TV, talking to a rather fed-up looking Moist. As per usual, Hammer was telling a rather boastful story that involved him pounding on a small, white clad somebody…

"So, your Doc friend said 'I'm VERY evil', so I just, like, grabbed him by the throat, and put him in a headlock, like this-" Captain Hammer pounced like a puma, grabbing the unsuspecting Moist and almost throttling him as he 'demonstrated' his headlock. Moist spluttered with indignation, trying pull the muscled arm from around his neck.

"-and then, I hauled him off of his feet and slung him like-"

"Oi, you tool! Kill my henchman and the deal's off!" Hammer's head cricked around, and his face fell.

"Oh. It's you." He let go of Moist, who collapsed to the floor, breathing heavily and massaging his neck. He quickly recovered and scampered away, glaring daggers at the super hero and muttering obscenities under his breath.

"I've got a job for you." said Horrible walking towards the bulky frame of Hammer. "I need you to head of right away; it's essential that its done ASAP, because I'm pretty sure that Normal will be planning on going there shortly. I need you to acquire something else for me, and I'm pretty sure you know where to get it from." The Doctor thrust the list in front of Hammer's face, pointing to what it was he wanted.

"I can't get that!" he exclaimed, looking at Horrible with disbelief. "D'you take me for an idiot or something? Do you know where that thing it? It's at-"

"I know where it is!" snapped the Doctor, venting a little of his fury at the imaginary girl-stealing Hammer in his head at the real life girl-stealing one that was stood in front of him. "You know the deal; you don't cooperate, you don't get your strength back. And the faster you carry out my requests, the faster I'll make a serum that'll permanently restore your muscles. Then you can be Mr. Bigshot again."

Hammer stood deliberating his options for a moment. That pooey breath; Hammer almost wished he was still living by bins with all the other non-special people in the world, but the mere thought of spending a lifetime not being adored almost made him start bawling again; nope, it looked like he was just going to have to do what the meany Horrible said. People who looked _this_ good in tight pants just couldn't be normal!

"Fine…" grumbled Hammer, resigning himself to the awful fact that he was fast becoming Dr Horrible's lackey, and striding off out of the apartment and out of sight.

Dr Horrible hastily shut the apartment door, checking his watch. Hammer had better be fast; his latest dose of strength serum was due to run out in two hours…

"What was all that about?" asked Moist, looking thoroughly bamboozled. "What's all that about Hammer needing his strength?"

"Oh, that!" said Horrible. He'd forgotten that Moist didn't know all about that. "Just to do with the Death Ray incident, when Hammer got the back firing ray and the thing exploded and…well, anyway, it's gotten rid of his super strength. That's why he's working with me; if he does what I say, I'll give him his strength back." Moist raised a quizzical eyebrow at Horrible.

"If it's a 'Death Ray', then why the hell didn't it kill Hammer? Would've done the world a good…"

"Because it wasn't functioning properly, after that moron made me drop it. There is a list of side effects of the Death Ray on the site, I'll show you…" Horrible walked over to his PC, and loaded the internet, quickly getting onto his favorite site; ''. Clicking on the link for 'Build Your Own Death Ray', he quickly scrolled down to the health warnings, highlighted in red.

**WARNING-DEATH RAY IS NOT A TOY. SIDE EFFECTS OF DEATH RAY INCLUDE:**

**DEATH**

**WEAKNESS OF MUSCLES**

**POOR VISION**

**SEISURES**

**DECREASE IN MENTAL ABILITY** (although the pair didn't think that could have any effect on Hammer)

**PERSISTANT CRYING/MOOD SWINGS**

**POOR DESICION MAKING**

**EXCESSIVE TOENAIL GROWTH**

"Well, the last one might explain why there are always nail clippings all over the sofa…" muttered Horrible.

* * *

The waterfall was bigger than Hammer remembered it; the jets of blue seemed to pounce off of the rocks that jutted out from under the other torrents, sending spouts that arced overhead and gracefully plopped onto Hammer's perfectly straightened hair. Grumbling, the Captain strode towards the feature, and dashed inside its cavernous maw the moment he saw a break in the flow of water. Inside, it was all dark and creepy, like the inside of the warehouse, except the sound of the crashing water thundered and echoed all around. A small tunnel led further into the belly of the waterfall, which was so dark that a great big grizzly bear could be hiding at the entrance and you wouldn't know it. Forcing himself _not_ to think of huge bear claws and sharp, muscle-tearing teeth, Hammer squeezed his considerable bulk down the rather narrow hole. After a few very cramped minutes (in which Hammer regretted eating that fifth helping of pie he'd had for supper), the super hero made it a well-lit opening, facing a pair of reinforced metal doors, with a giant 'E' branded in the middle of them.

Brushing the dust off his black tee and ruffling his hair to casual perfection, Hammer strode towards the door, and reached on tip-toe for the lightening-bolt shaped knocker. The thing made a clang like a gong as it smacked against the burnished bronze.

Minutes passed. No answer.

"Hellooooo?" called Hammer in a sing-song voice, jumping up and down in front of the door. "Anybody in there?" he paused to listen to his voice echoing around the cavern. Simple minds.

Hammer lifted the knocker and let it clang on the door, once, twice and then a third time. Still, no one came. Oh well. Never mind. Dr Horrible would just have to get off his bum and come down here him-

"Man, what happened to patience? A girl has got to have time to wind down and have her pedicure after a hard day fighting crime!"

As Hammer had begun to make his way back to the tunnel, the doors had swung open, revealing a blonde-haired, sun tanned goddess who was probably on just about every guy's freebee five. She looked at Hammer with a snooty expression on her face, a perfect eyebrow arched with distaste. Who was this loser, and how DARE he bother Elementia during her mani-pedi day? She was in half a mind to turn him into a puddle. Or freeze him, as he wasn't half bad looking. Actually, he looked quite familiar…

"You know," said Elementia, wrapping her Armani bathrobe around her body more securely "I only sign autographs Tuesday's nine while twelve at the Town hall. And I have a twenty yard personal space zone." Apparently, the man hadn't heard a word she'd just said, because he had run up and given her a back-breaking hug.

EW! Had a commoner just _touched_ her?

Guards swarmed down on Hammer like a hive of seriously pissed bees, trying to grab his arms and yank them behind his back.

"Elementia, it's me, Captain Hammer, don't you remember?" he shot her his winning smile (now less gappy since he'd gotten himself some dentures). "We took down Lord Lucan and his underlings together last summer, remember? The Dastardly Plot? We got medals!"

"Nope…don't remember it. But I am a super hero; I do a lot of good deeds. Take down a lot of bad guys." she regarded grinning guy for a moment, before snapping her fingers. The guards released him and filed back to their posts.

"So, Hammer, if that _is_ your name, what do you want with me? I'm _very_ busy." Busy painting her nails, that is.

"I thought, seeing as though we're buddies, amigos, comrades-"

"Cut to the chase."

Hammer frowned. This wasn't the way that he, _Captain Hammer_, the elite of the elite, should be treated. He didn't get it; only a month or so ago, he and Elementia had been sipping tea over a plate of caviar on toast!

"That's no way to talk to a national super hero ya know!" he said huffily, throwing a sulky look at the woman in front of him. "I'm the worlds strongest man, don't you know! I bench pressed five-hundred aged three, I beat Superman in an arm wrestle when I was ten, I floored Chuck Norris using only my pinky finger, I-"

"Yes, I _get _it, you're strong!" said Elementia, rolling her eyes. "Come in, tell me what it is you want, and get out of my Command Center!"

Elementia stomped back into her luxury hall, which was pretty much carpeted in a layer of jewels and precious metals, on walls, ceiling and floors. Her Command Desk was sat in front of a glass screen that had water running down the face of it. Huge cylinders containing different coloured flames lit the room.

"Place looks nice." said Hammer in a conversational tone. Elementia glared at him, still suspicious. She was still racking her brains trying to figure out where she'd seen this guy before…was he really a super hero? Normally she didn't let commoners into her house, but, as the guy was especially hot, she'd find out what he wanted _before_ vaporizing him.

"So what is it you want _Captain_ Hammer?" she decided to humor him; after all, what damage could this guy do? He was probably just a delusional fan, anyway. "You want an autograph? A signed picture? A kiss?"

"Hyperdiamond." That took the great Elementia by surprise.

"What for?"

"Stuff." Elementia stood for a moment, her fingers inching towards the alarm button inside her robe pocket. The little voice inside her head was screaming 'mentalist'. But Elementia was never a great believer in listening to the little voice inside her head; hey, that sort of thing was the first sign of madness! Instead, she just laughed.

"I wouldn't give you that stuff even if I wanted to. You know how much that stuff is worth? I just use it to line my light fittings." she gestured towards the crackling flames.

"What do you even need that kind of stuff for?"

"Something. Something important. So, are you saying you aren't gonna give me the hyperdiamondy stuff?" Well, what this guy might have in strength and good looks, he lacked in brain cells.

"Nope."

"But I really need it! My bossy guy, Dr H-" Hammer seemed aware that he'd said too much. Elementia froze mid-eye role. Was he about to say Dr Horrible…?

Quicker than lightening (which is ironic as she controls lightening, being Elementia and all), the heroine summoned her elemental strength, ready to blast Hammer to kingdom-come. But, somehow, Hammer was quicker; he leapt across the room to the nearest cylinder, and, with all of his strength, ripped it from it's holdings on the floor. Unfortunately, Hammer had forgotten about the massive column of flame inside of the tube…

The fire leapt from its container, the purple flames devouring the floor where they touched. Elementia screeched as the flames bounded towards her, and had to use her powers to make them veer off-course and stop them from scorching her eyebrows off. During her momentary distraction, Captain Hammer had rushed towards the doors, tube on his shoulder, the end of it spouting out lilac fire and preventing the guards from stopping him from escaping. A whistling overhead signaled that Elementa, who had managed to get rid of the flames that had surrounded her, was back after Hammer and was also in a very bad mood. He could hear her snarling as she aimed water bolts at the back of his head…

Sheesh, talk about a rage issue. That girl needed some anger-management classes.

Ducking the water missiles, Hammer booted open the doors with one big kick (which really hurt his big toe, actually) and bounded through the chamber towards the tunnel. Shoving the tube through first, Hammer began to clamber through, but suddenly, something really weird happened. His leg went numb. Confused, Hammer shook it. Ooo, it felt a bit like jell-o. He prodded it, forgetting about the horde of guards and the seriously annoyed super hero that were literally just meters away, firing bullets, tazers and fireballs at him. Deciding that he'd figure it out later, Hammer began to push the cylinder further into the tunnel.

But then, his other leg gave way. Oh, it was not looking good for the self-proclaimed Tool.

Hindered by his wibbly legs, Hammer tried to shunt the tube further down, but it was no use; he sank to the floor, his legs absolutely useless. The guards were now upon him, heaving him towards them. Fighting was useless; Hammer could feel his arms becoming numb too, and the effects of the strength serum were quickly wearing off.

Within moments, a fuming Elementia had made her way to the front of the guards to confront the thief.

"YOU BROKE MY LAMP!" she yelled, her eyes widening manically. "You've burnt my floor, and look!" she brandished her length of golden hair at Hammer. "See! SEE! Split ends! Now what am I meant to do?" she turned to one of her guards. "Cooper, make me another appointment with Jerome tomorrow, will you?" the man nodded and hurried off to call the emergency hair dressers.

"As for _you_," she pointed an accusatory finger at the Captain. "You are going to learn that hard way that _nobody_ messes with Elementia! Not even you, you…_villain_…_"_

The last word hung in the air for several moments. Hammer looked befuddled- what did she mean, villain? He wasn't a villain; he was Captain Hammer, doer of good, stopper of evil!


	7. Chapter 7

**Sorry for the MASSIVE delay in posting this chapter, I had really bad writers block and didn't have a clue how to write this chappy for yonks. Thanks to my sis, my fic is back on track and also has a better ending than I planned, which is all good =)  
I will try to post chapters more frequently now, seeing as though I have no school and the monster known as prom is done and dusted. Thank God. Anyways, without further ado, Chapter 7. I hope you like it =)**

Chapter 7

The clock on the bookshelf had tolled two about twenty minutes ago. Which meant that it was now 2:20 AM. Which meant that Hammer was late.

Very, very late.

Dr Horrible paced around the small square foot of empty space in his apartment like a caged animal, throwing an anxious glance at the door every few seconds. His trusty side-kick, Moist, was sat bleary eyed on the couch, flicking through last Thursday's edition of _Henchmen Weekly_. Every time Horrible turned, Moist looked up, yanked out of his reading by the shards of metal crunching under his employer's boots. It was really starting to get on his nerves…

"Jeez, Doc, why don't you just sit down?" asked a miffed Moist, shutting his magazine in defeat. Was there never a time when Moist could get any peace? He sort of felt more like a babysitter than a henchman…

"But he's not back yet!" cried the Doctor, running a frustrated hand through his already messy hair. "Hammer should've been back an hour ago, the strength serum will have worn off by now." Moist watched as Horrible tugged at his red lab coat, fiddling with the folds. Personally, he thought that the white one suited him better; this new one was a little too long on the sleeves. But the stains did tend to come off the red better…

"He'll be back when he gets back." said Moist, drawing himself out of his fashion analysis of lab coats. He then frowned at Billy. "Why do you care so much about Hammer getting back anyway?" He watched suspiciously as Horrible spluttered with indignation.

"Care about Hammer?" he finally choked out. "He's nothing but a pawn of the oppressive government; I couldn't give a rat's arse what happened to him. But I need those hyperdiamond plates, and I do preferably want him back alive; I've need for him yet…" The evil Doctor paced towards his Table of Evil Schemes, and plucked up a bright yellow book entitled _Ray Building For Dummies_ in an attempt to calm his nerves.

He'd only just flicked to his favorite chapter; _Unorthodox Designs You Shouldn't, Under Any Circumstances Attempt_ when, for what felt like the umpteenth time that week, his mobile phone blared its usual tune. My, he was a popular man.

"Horrible speaking," said the Doctor, his voice jumpy. For once in his life, he was hoping that it was Captain Hammer on the other end.

"Sorry to wake you up at such a ridiculous time, my… 'Evil' colleague," came Normal's drawl, his sarcastic tone anything but apologetic; he was obviously still mega peed from the whole heist fiasco. Or success, if you viewed it from Horrible's perspective.

"No, no it's okay. I was already up." said Horrible, trying to keep as diplomatic as possible. Best not poke the dragon in the eye when you've already chopped off its arm…

"Well, after last night's…events," said Normal, his seething voice betraying his anger, "I think we need to discuss your involvement in this operation. I am not a hundred percent convinced you are up to the job. Nor am I certain that, considering our failure, you have what is required to partake in any future plots that the ELE may present." The Doctor gulped; it looked like he was in it big time. He may as well put his ELE membership card in the shredder right now.

"Yes. Yes, I agree of course. But I promise, nothing like that will happen again, I'll-"

"Meet me in my office at eight, sharpish." continued Professor Normal as if Dr Horrible hadn't said a word. "And for your sake, you had better not be late."

The phone went dead in Billy's hand. With a sense of dread, he stowed it back into his pocket. Oh, this was not good. Things were only just getting into motion, and already he was getting on the wrong side of Normal and the ELE. But the sweet scent of Penny and revenge were too great to give it all up now. He was just going to have to hope that he could finish the Resurrect-Ohm-Meter before Bad Horse and his clan of merry villains came down on him like a ton of bricks.

"Bad Horse have some harsh whinnies for you?" Moist peered over his magazine to look at Billy with a sympathetic expression.

"No, just Professor Normal, but he wants words."

"That's probably not a good omen."

"Tell me about it." Dr Horrible sighed, staring intently at the door, even though he was pretty sure by now that Hammer wasn't going to walk through it any time soon. "This is not good. I didn't think I'd have a confrontation with the ELE so soon into my plan. It's gonna make things a lot trickier than I anticipated… they will begin to suspect something is up soon, if they don't already." The evil Doctor snatched up his goggles from the side table and secured them over his eyes.

"You gonna go after Captain Hammer?"

Dr Horrible nodded. "Normal wants to see me at eight, and I've got a feeling that Elementia is being her normal bitchy self and has caught Hammer and locked him away somewhere. Knowing him, he probably asked her for the hyperdiamond…he picks the most inconvenient time to get himself captured." Carefully, Horrible picked up a number of his rays and stuffed them into his gym bag. His hands hovered over the Death Ray; the thing was fully repaired after Captain Doofus had broken it and…

Billy shook his head and shoved the ray into the bag with the others, zipped it up, and slung it over one shoulder. The weight of the guns almost made the scrawny guy topple over. He then carefully side-stepped around the clutter and the still immobile Johnny Snow to reach the door.

"Will you be wanting some…slippery assistance?" Moist was by his side, clutching his damp hoodie.

"Actually," said Dr Horrible with a rather sheepish expression "I was rather hoping that you'd…give me a lift to Elementia's secret lair?" Moist rolled his eyes and stomped off to grab his car keys. Honestly, he spent half his time acting as a chauffer for the Doctor. One of these days, Dr Horrible was going to actually _pass_ his driving test…

"To the Horrible Mobile!" groaning, Moist followed Horrible to their (well, _his_) car, an extremely old and battered Polo that was probably rustier than the Titanic. After hammering the alarm button a few times, the pair finally managed to yank the doors open and pile inside. The interior was a boring beige colour, the upholstery stained, and it had a lingering smell of smoke, cats and old women. But at least the car drove. Sort of.

* * *

A number of uncomfortable, suspensionless minutes later, the duo ground to a halt on the outskirts of the city. Lugging the bag of rays behind him, Dr Horrible and Moist set out towards the faint sound of falling water, the location of Elementia's base. The walk would've been fairly soothing, had the pair not been fretting about whether or not they were going to make it back out with the full number of limbs.

"Right," said Dr Horrible, his face half illuminated in the moonlight, giving the villain a slightly eerie and sinister look about him. "What are we going to need for this…?" the man riffled through the gym bag and quickly pulled out the Paralysis Gun, Reductor Beam and a handful of funny looking pretzel-shaped objects.

"What are those?" Dr Horrible carefully poured a number of the things into Moist's hands. His henchman flinched as he did so; he was all too familiar with how badly the Doctor's inventions could malfunction.

"They're Taser Bugs." Moist looked at the little metallic objects with fear. "You activate them like this-" Horrible pressed the centre of one of the Bugs in Moist's palm, giving the poor guy a minor heart attack; a set of lethal looking…legs shot out of sides of the device. A small blue light began to flash on the reverse of the Taser Bug.

"Those things help it cling onto the wall," explained Horrible "and then, if it detects movement in a ten foot radius, loads of little taser wires will implode from it, embedding themselves into the unwitting victim and knocking them out-cold for about ten minutes. I made it so that the electrical impulses would shock the body into a temporary state of comatose; it's quite genius to be honest. I figured that we could lay them out so that the knock out any guards that follow us."

"Er, Doc?" Moist looked at his boss, frowning slightly. "How do we disarm them when we're walking back out of Elementia's lair so they don't taser us?" The mastermind's eyes widened with shock and realization.

"Oh…I, er, hadn't really…thought about that…" Dr Horrible looked at the inventions in his hands. Those had taken him so long to make, he'd done loads of planning, checked them over and over, yet he'd forgotten to make an off switch? Typical.

"Well, we can still plant them and just take another route or something on the way back." Moist quickly looked away to hide his sceptical expression.

"Anyway," continued Horrible "we'd better get a move on; Normal will lose it if I'm late to his meeting…" Without further ado, villain and henchman shoved the Taser Bugs into their pockets and hurried off towards the waterfall.

As they squeezed out their soaking clothes in the cave behind the waterfall, Dr Horrible pulled out a flash light and began to search for any signs of Captain Hammer. Yes, there and there; large footprints were leading towards the tunnel where Elementia's base lay. Beckoning Moist and gesturing him to be silent, the pair made their way cautiously along the rocky corridor. Horrible shone the torch at the floor; there were Hammer's foot prints leading _towards_ the base, but none coming _from_. Sighing with resignation that they were going to have to do a jail break-out, Horrible pressed on until they reached the well-lit entrance hall where the great steel doors leading to the superhero's home were. Just as the Doctor reached the door, Moist made a funny little noise, grabbing his attention.

"What?"

"Doc," said Moist, who was looking intently at the sides of the tunnel mouth "come have a look at this." Rolling his eyes, Horrible rejoined his henchman. As he got nearer, however, he soon noticed something he'd missed earlier. There were massive scrape marks all along the sides of the tunnel, as though someone had tried to shove a very big, very hard something through the opening…

"He tried to take an entire tube?" cried Horrible in disbelief. No wonder Hammer had gotten himself caught. The scientist cast around the cavernous hall in hope, but he knew that it would be in vain; the cylinder of hyperdiamond had obviously been removed.

"Come on." Horrible returned to the door and began to examine it. After a couple of moments, he pulled a long, lethal looking instrument out of his coat, and inserted it into the lock. Several minutes and a bout of cursing later, the door finally swung open, revealing Elementia's rather lavish living quarters. The place was dark (well, it was almost three in the morning), and all the fires were out in the remaining six pillars of hyperdiamond. Oddly enough, even though there had been an attempted theft of one already, there were no guards to be seen. Well, Dr Horrible was hardly going to complain about that…

"We should get Hammer first," said the Doctor, as Moist started towards one of the tubes. "It'll be easier to get him out if we're not lugging a great lump of rock with us. Plus it'll be easier to sneak around undetected." readying the Paralysis Gun and motioning Moist to do the same with the Reductor Beam, the pair began to make their way along the one of the many corridors in the base, planting the Taser Bugs as they went. They made their way through the lair without encountering any guards, which Horrible found unnerving; every time the Doctor had been here before (which was only twice to be fair), the place had been swarming with thuggish brutes.

"Would it kill someone to put some signposts around here?" grumbled Moist after ten minutes of wandering aimlessly around identical corridors. "How the hell is anyone meant to find the dungeon around-"

The sound of distant footsteps made the duo freeze with terror. Unlike in most stories where people are trespassing illegally, there were no nearby closets or cupboards, strategically placed for the protagonists to hide in. Both Horrible and Moist were trapped in a narrow corridor with nowhere to go; continuing onward would mean bumping into the guards sooner and getting beaten black and blue. Going back would mean getting zapped by one of Dr Horrible's 'ingenious' inventions.

In other words, they were going to have to rely on Dr Horrible's aim and the Paralysis Gun.

Which meant that they were well and truly screwed.

"-and Julia said that she'd have some Shepard's Pie ready for my supper when I finally get off shift tonight." The pair could hear voices now, as the guards approached them. "Ain't she a darling?" In the gloom, Dr Horrible could make out two burly figures making their way towards where they stood. He pointed his ray at the guards, but he knew it was useless; he had the poorest aim in history. Heck, he'd almost impaled his gym teacher with a javelin in ninth grade, and she'd been stood in the crowd. In the left wing. Behind him.

"Aye, I wish I had a wife like your Julia; she's so lovely. Mandy can be a bit of a bit-" the second man paused mid-sentence. At the end of the corridor, Horrible and Moist could see him cock his head as he tried to make them out.

"Whose there?" he called. Neither replied. Dr Horrible tried to take aim with his gun a little better. Moist just stood there, sweating more profusely than normal.

"Drop your weapons! Drop them, I say!" grimacing, the Doctor squinted at the approaching guards and fired, hoping that some divine intervention or something might make the beam hit its target.

With a bang like a firecracker, the beam snaked its way out of the ray, streaking down the corridor in a green flash. It soared over the guards' heads, hit the glass covering of a portrait of the resident superhero and, somehow, re-bounded back down the hall. Horrible's jaw dropped in amazement as the beam smashed into the face of the taller of the two guards and the poor man collapsed in a dead feint.

Although the Paralysis Gun had taken care of one of the guards, it had, unfortunately, left one unscathed. And sadly this guy had a revolver stuck into his belt.

"DUCK!" yelled Horrible, dragging Moist to the ground. The gun went off, and the villain didn't bother to look as to where the bullet had gone. All he knew was that it'd been far to close for comfort, and that this guard was probably a better aim than he was; Horrible was certain that, this time he wouldn't miss. And that he would shoot to kill.

Scrambling on all fours, Horrible reached out desperately for the ray that he'd dropped as he'd hit the floor. Billy grasped a hold of the thing and pulled the trigger, but he was wide, and the ray shot off around the corner somewhere. A bang issued from further up the corridor again, but this time the guard hit his target; the Doctor couldn't suppress a scream of agony as the bullet bit him in his right shoulder, making him drop his ray gun. He could feel the blood trickling down his arm, and that alone almost made him hurl; Billy wasn't exactly well known for having a strong stomach.

Wincing from the pain, Dr Horrible feebly tried to fire with his left hand, but it was no use; the Paralysis Gun was too heavy to man with just one working hand. He'd have to use a bog-standard smoke grenade or something to disorientate the guard, but all of those were in his duffle bag, which was somewhere near-

A rumbling overhead made Billy look up with confusion. A number of the beams which held up the ceiling had gone, had been disintegrated into nothingness. The remaining guard was also looking up at the ceiling, an expression of terror etched on his face. Horrible's head snapped back to look at Moist, who was clutching the Reductor Beam and pointing the thing at the last remaining beam. His soggy friend fired, obliterating the last of the support of the ceiling. The henchman then realized with horror that his friend was in the danger zone, right beneath where most of the second storey floor was going to fall.

"Doc, move! Move out of the way!" He cried in unnecessary warning, but it was a little too late. All Horrible could do was hope that he didn't get turned into the world's most evil pancake.

Luckily, the evil Doctor was squashed right against the wall, and that spared his life. A foot to the left and he would've found himself crushed to death by a large Ming Dynasty vase, which wouldn't have been a pleasant experience. The rubble around him had created a V shape with the wall, leaving the Doctor relatively uninjured. Gripping the Paralysis Gun with his bad hand and shifting bits of insulation and wood flooring with the other, Billy began to dig his way out. A few minutes of heaving later, he reached Moist, who was shovelling bits of building from above.

"You okay Doc?" Horrible grunted in reply, wriggling his way free from the rubble. His arm was smarting badly, and the feel of the hot internal juices trickling down it was making him feel woozy.

"We need to get moving." he managed eventually, handing Moist his ray. "Someone is bound to have heard that." Moist nodded in agreement, and the pair started forward, stumbling every now and then on protruding bits of structure. The guard lay underneath a light layer of rubble at the end of the corridor, unconscious, but otherwise unharmed.

"I think we need to take a left," said Dr Horrible, frowning as he tried to find his bearings "I'm pretty sure that Elementia's little dungeon is straight on, but the corridors-"

The wall straight in front of Dr Horrible crumbled into dust as the Reductor Beam hit it.

"I figured that we could just go straight through here…considering we've already wrecked the place, I didn't think one wall really mattered…" mumbled Moist. Horrible nodded in agreement, a little miffed at himself for not thinking of that. He was, after all, meant to be the Evil _Genius_ out of the pair. He blamed it on loss of blood.

* * *

"Got any Aces?"

"Go fish!"

For captors, Captain Hammer didn't find these guards too bad. Since they'd stopped him from getting away with Dr Horrible's hyperdiamond stuff, Hammer and the prison watch guards had been playing a good few games of 'Go Fish', the only card game that the superhero could really get a hang of.

"Hammerman, you got any Queens?" asked a guard named Ced, who'd been on duty for the hours Hammer had been down here. He was a pretty cool guy; he understood the Captain's situation perfectly.

"I don't understand why you're working for that Dr Horrible guy." said Ced, reaching over to take the Captain's two Queens. "He doesn't seem to get you at all."

"I know, right!" nodded Hammer "He doesn't know that I got needs too! It's all him, him, him. 'Get this stuff for me, Hammer,' or 'Hold these pipes,' or 'Go get those for my machine to bring back Lenny' or whatever her name is. There is never any compromise!"

"I feel for you man." Ced patted Captain Hammer on the shoulder sympathetically. "Working for Elementia is the same thing, isn't it guys?" the other guards gave a mutter of agreement. "We've got to do whatever she says, or we don't get paid and she sets our hair on fire. And I've got a family; I can't just quit! My daughter wants to go to Harvard." the man frowned and shook his head.

"I wish I could ditch that naggy villain, but I've gotta get my strength back; without it, I'm Just A Normal Guy. And I don't wanna be Just A Normal Guy! You guys are normal, so you know how normal normal is." Captain Hammer slapped down a set of Eights. "Being strong is all I have, because I'm not some smart ass like all those dorks I used to shove down toilets. Although, I do guess that my charm and good looks-" he grinned at the other men in the room, whom nodded vigorously in agreement "- do count for something. Quite a lot actually…hey, looks _always_ beat brains don't they? I'm pretty sure that David Beckham didn't get Posh Spice by doing some…mathy stuff. Actually, I think-"

Nobody ever found out what Captain Hammer thought, although the fact that he did at all was nothing short of a miracle. The hero was interrupted by a loud clunking from the stairwell near his cell. Something was bounding down the flag stone stairs towards the men sat at the scrubbed wooden table. An oddly shaped, florescent orange something.

"What the hell is _that_?" queried one of the guards, getting off of his chair to examine the object closer. It was about the size of a tennis ball, with strange lumps protruding off the main body of the entity, almost like tumours. Knowing never to touch any unidentified object that just _happened_ to bounce down the stairs where a captive was being held, the guard prodded the thing with his baton. To his (and his comrades) surprise, the excess metal bits on the device fell off, revealing a number of holes. The only person who didn't show any curiosity in the object was Captain Hammer. He, unlike the others, was not bent over the thing in wonderment, but huddled in the corner of his cell, t-shirt yanked up over his mouth, eyes shut and fingers pinching his nose closed.

"Get away from that, men, I don't like the looks of it…" Ced held his arms out, making the rest of the guards stand behind him. He took his pistol out and aimed at the orange object, brow furrowed. Just as he was about to pull the trigger, a gas began to seep out of the device, filling the room in a thick layer of yellowish fog.

"Wha-" the guard named Ced was cut off as the gas filled his sinuses, making it impossible to speak and making eyes, throat and nose sting like someone had squeezed chilli juice into each of the orifices.

Whilst all of the guards were rolling about the floor, clutching their throats and eyes watering like no tomorrow, somebody fumbled through the clouds of gas towards the corner of the room. Hammer, still hunched over, felt a gloved hand clasp onto his arm and drag him out of the cell, up the aging stairs and into breathable air. Opening his eyes, Captain Hammer was met by the sight of a be-goggled Dr Horrible. The man was pulling a swimming clip from his nose whilst that annoying henchman, Moist, untied a scarf from around the scientist's mouth to allow him to speak.

Great…seemed like the break was over. The only thing that perked Hammer up at the sight of Dr Horrible was the fact that Mr. Bossy Guts was wincing quite badly and that there seemed to be a great deal of blood on the Doctor's lab coat.

"That could've gone a little smoother." muttered Horrible, pulling his goggles up his face. "I walked into the table and I think I must've dropped the rest of my Taser Bugs." Dr Horrible searched through his pockets with his good hand.

"Oh great, I knew it!" he pulled out a small vial that had a large crack in it and was spewing out it's contents. "Strength Serum's leaked. And that was my last vial…" the Doctor pulled out a hypodermic needle, sucked up what remained of the concoction and dosed Hammer up on some much needed strength.

"Doc, we are gonna need to get moving, that gas is going to wear off pretty soon, and the guards are probably closing in as we speak." Moist started towards a large hole in the wall, but then stopped. He quickly unzipped the navy gym bag that had been on his shoulder and chucked Captain Hammer a large ray gun, which he caught spectacularly well.

"The Death Ray? Is that really necessary?" the Doctor looked kind of angry. "I only packed it as a precaution."

Moist shrugged. "We might need it. The Paralysis Gun was mangled when I caved the roof, so it's the only one we've got besides mine." Horrible looked at his henchman furiously, but didn't argue and followed him through the hole. Hammer weighed the somewhat familiar ray in his hands before joining the other two in the next room.

* * *

"The place is swarming!" hissed Moist as the three of them hid behind a partitioning and a large ficus. It would appear that the guards, whom had presumably been sleeping in their barracks, had discovered the chaos created by Horrible and Moist and all forces had been summoned to find the intruders. Men and women in stab proof vests and riot shields were trooping up and down the corridors, upturning every chair, table and stapler in search of Dr Horrible and his accomplices. The three men had made it so far back through Elementia's lair undetected, bypassing the Bugs they had placed earlier. But now they were confronted with the momentous task of getting out those steel doors without being shot down the second they broke cover.

"Right…now what?"

"I don't know, _you'r_esupposed to be the mastermind!"

"Okay, how about…" Dr Horrible thought about their options for a few moments. Dang, it was hard to come up with a fool-proof escape plan under this kind of pressure! He tried as hard as he could to come up with an idea, but his vision was beginning to blur and his head was pounding painfully. He grimaced as his arm throbbed. The clock was ticking; he needed to get out sharpish, unless he planned on expiring behind a pot plant.

"I guess we could take out the stairs," said the Doctor in a strained voice, peering through the leaves to get a view of the marble stairs. "That might cause enough commotion for us to slip through unnoticed. I think you should be able to get a decent shot from here Moist."

The henchman shook his head. "No good; they'd see where the beam came from and some would head over this way." Horrible frowned, biting his lip.

"Why not send Hammer out as a distraction, Doc?"

"As much as I like that idea, I don't think that is going to help us exactly." Dr Horrible looked at the door, which was a couple of hundred feet from their hiding place.

"What about…" he muttered his idea to the other two, who looked at him with scepticism.

"I'm not too sure about that," mumbled Moist "there's a lot that could go wrong."

"Yeah," agreed Hammer "but I don't wanna sit around here forever. Early morning Scrubs will be on soon. I don't like trusting you, Dr Horrible, but as this is the best plan we've got, I reckon we go for it."

Dr Horrible smiled faintly when Moist agreed to give it a go. As Moist talked to Hammer about what he needed to do, Dr Horrible kept an ear out, and, sure enough, he soon heard approaching guards.

"Right, get ready…" Dr Horrible plucked a rock from the plant's pot and hurled it as hard as he could at one of the wine glasses that were sat on the ornate dining table just in front of them. He missed the glass, but the rock hit a crystal fruit bowel, which produced a nice ringing sound. As they had hoped, the sound of hurried footsteps began to get louder. Five guards appeared in the doorway, and, with shouts of triumph, started towards the three men. But Moist was ready for them. The Reductor Beam disintegrated the floor in front of the guards, sending all of them tumbling into the basement. Quickly, before the guards could get to their feet and start firing through the hole, Moist grabbed three of the riot shields that had got lodged over the hole.

"That went better than I thought it would." said Horrible, impressed. He took two of the Perspex shields from Moist, handing one to Captain Hammer and keeping the second for himself.

"On to phase two then." Moist poured what remained of the Taser Bugs into Captain Hammer's palm. "You know what to do with these, right?"

"Yes, yes, I was listening." Hammer, Moist and Horrible crept around the partition, positioning themselves so that they could make a clear break for the exit.

"Everybody ready?" Hammer and Moist both nodded.

"Arm them."

Amazingly quickly for someone with such large fingers, Hammer activated every single one of the Taser Bugs.

"Throw them, quickly, before they get us!"

The Bugs soared through the air towards the centre of the room, past Elementia's desk and almost right in the middle of where most of the guards were. They exploded simultaneously, shocking almost all of the guards in the immediate area and making the rest scramble over one another to get away from the chaos. Back in the side corridor, Moist hurriedly passed Hammer the Death Ray back and the three of them raced towards the exit, bent double with the riot shields covering most of their bodies like some kind of weird turtle shell. As planned, the three men zigzagged wildly across the room to make themselves harder targets, which proved useful as they were almost immediately under fire. The guards on the balcony reigned bullets down on Dr Horrible and the others, but luckily, the riot shields did their job and the worst injury the bullets inflicted were bruises.

Unfortunately, the guards surrounding Elementia's Control Desk that hadn't been stunned or trampled had clocked onto the Doctor's plan, and were now tailing the three men, firing at them with hand guns and trying to knock their blocks off with batons.

"Moist!" cried Horrible, as a group of guards began to surround them, "The Reductor Beam!"

Heeding his employer's advice, the moist Moist fired the ray behind them, which at the very least stalled some of guards coming at them. But they were only halfway to the door, and vastly outnumbered. Captain Hammer was doing a pretty good job of battering people out of the way and smacking them with the butt of his gun, but it was only a matter of time until they were completely overwhelmed.

"Any better ideas Doc?" yelled Moist, struggling against a tide of guards who just swarmed them. The only reason that they weren't down on the floor and dead was that the guard's own riot shields were preventing them from getting a good swing at them with their vicious metal clubs. Dr Horrible looked to the heavens for inspiration, for one last hope. And for once, he saw it. It was so cliché, but…

"Aim up!" he cried, gesturing towards the ceiling. His henchman's head snapped up, and he nodded, knowing what he'd have to do. The man grasped a hold of the Reductor Beam as well as he could, between his slippery palms and the jostling of the guards. And for one last time that night, Moist pulled the trigger of the ray. The beam hit its mark. There was a sonorous noise from above, and all the guards stopped. Even Hammer paused, half way through throwing a man, like in some kind of action movie. The great crystalline structure overhead began to fall, as if in slow motion, and Dr Horrible couldn't stop himself from admiring how each and every person in the room dove for cover as Elementia's million dollar Swarovski Crystal chandelier shattered onto the floor, showering everyone in the vicinity with coloured glass.

Horrible had to admit, it had a kind of beauty to it. Like the Royal Ballet, minus the dancers. And with the addition of the destruction of what was nothing more or less than a _very_ expensive disco ball.

As quickly as possible, Horrible shook what remained of Elementia's most prized possession from his coat and dragged Moist and Hammer towards the exit. They were there, literally there, when Horrible noticed two things very weird:

No guards were chasing them, or even attempting to stop them in any way.

There was now a large gap between the roof and the top of the door that Dr Horrible swore wasn't there before.

Casting around the room, the evil Doctor could see that the guards who had managed to pick themselves up were staring, transfixed, at the place where the chandelier been. Great cracks were slowly, but surely, beginning to spread from that point, across what remained of the ceiling and down the walls. And as they stood there, it was easy to see that the upper stories of the building were shifting; the whole place was going to…

"…Collapse." Dr Horrible stared at the crevices that were growing wider with each passing second. "We've created too many structural weaknesses, the place must've been unsoundly built; Elementia's lair is going to fall!"

There was a mass of screaming from up the stairwell, then a figure clad in a bathrobe tore through the golden arches at the top of the stairs and gripped the balcony, staring up at the massive great hole in the roof. Elementia howled as she saw that her beloved chandelier was gone, then sank to the floor, sobbing, as her home slowly began to tumble. Even from where he was stood, Dr Horrible could hear Elementia cursing him through her bawling. A number of guards dragged her to her feet and carried her off, presumably towards an emergency exit. That wasn't before she had chance to hurl a fireball that only just missed the Bad Doctor's head.

"Come on, we need to get out of here…" Moist and Captain Hammer began to heave the door open whilst Horrible stared at the gradually failing building. One of the pillars, having no roof to support, was swaying dangerously, moments from toppling…

"The hyperdiamond!" cried Horrible, face-palming himself. The one thing (bar Hammer) they had come here for!

"Captain Hammer," cried Billy, taking a hold of the left door next to the hero. "I need you to get-"

"Why is it always me?" whined the Captain. "This place is gonna go down, and you want_ me _to go back and get the hyperdiamond stuff?"

"Well..yeah. If you want to be Mr. Bigshot again…"

"This is gonna mess up my hair. I hope you know that."

Shaking his head, Captain Hammer ducked and dodged the falling debris, meandering his way towards a chunk of the mineral that had broken away from one of the main cylinders. Dr Horrible watched, his heart pounding. The hero had grabbed a hold of the slab, and was just about to turn around, when one of the last remaining guards jumped him, getting a firm grip on the other side of the hyperdiamond. Horrible cracked his knuckles in frustration. This place would crush them if they didn't get out of here soon…

Hammer and the guard were conversing in the centre of the room, saying words that he could hardly make out. His job wasn't made any easier with Moist bleating in his ear.

"Doc, help with the door-"

"Shh a sec-"

"Doc, I'm not sure if you understand the seriousness of our situation!"

Dr Horrible stepped a little further from the door and began waving wildly at Hammer to hurry the hell up. From here, he could make out a little of what they were saying.

"-let go of it, let go now!" Hammer was tugging at the hyperdiamond, but the other man seemed to have a very good grip on the stuff.

"-come now, Hammerman, we can go finish our game, I think you're still winning-"

"-my strength. This is the only way to keep it!"

Dr Horrible watched curiously as the guard reluctantly got out his pistol. He said something else, but it was drowned out by the roaring of the stone and marble as it hit the floor.

From that point on, everything happened so fast that, by the time Horrible realized what the hero intended to do, it was too late.

With one final tug, Hammer managed to shake the guard's grip off the hyperdiamond. The man fell from the force, and his pistol shot across the room. A whirr of energy sounded through the hall, and a jet of red issued from the Death Ray in Captain Hammer's hands, hitting the guard full in the chest. He crumpled.

Suddenly, the already blurred world tilted, and Dr Horrible, whether from shock or from finally succumbing to his injuries, slid to the floor.

And the world went black.


	8. Chapter 8

**Sorry for the delay...again. Been redecorating my room, which took the micheal; never knew that smashing a shelf with a mallet could leave so many holes! Anyway, I hope you enjoy this chapter, and I apologise profusly for the sciencey bit in the middle. I apologise even more for it being wrong, as my darling, smart-ass, physics know-it-all sister pointed out...**

Chapter 8

"Okay, you can look now. I've got the worst of it out. Looks like you had a rough night."

"You can say that again."

"You've lost a hell of a lot of blood. Lucky your friends got you here when they did; much longer and you would've been in a very sorry state indeed."

The doctor left Billy alone in the room go dispose of the bullet that had been lodged in his shoulder. He'd almost up chucked when he'd woken to see the state of his arm; a massive great hole had been ripped through the flesh, sticky red fluids trickling at a fairly steady rate from the wound. He _had _thrown up when they'd brought in the bag of blood. Ughh…

Dr Horrible couldn't remember much of what happened in Elementia's lair. On top of a great big chunk missing in his arm, he had a cracked rib (presumably from the falling roof, which he did remember) and rather bad concussion from when he'd passed out. He didn't remember getting to A and E, nor did he remember when Moist and Hammer had managed to wriggle him out of his lab coat, which was a little worrying.

Billy plucked at his plain blue t-shirt as he sat, waiting, on the examination table. The antiseptic on his arm was stinging painfully, but at least he didn't smell like an abattoir anymore. The room around him was a sterile white, so brightly lit that his already sore head pounded even harder. There wasn't much on the walls; some hand washing posters, a couple of leaflets about arthritis, growth charts and a clock. Dr Horrible squinted at the small ticking hands on its face.

No…that couldn't be right!

"You've got to be kidding me!" Billy leapt from the table just as the doctor walked back in. He made towards the door, but the woman laughed, her eyes crinkling as she guided Billy back towards where he'd been sat.

"Not so fast, Mr. Carter! You've been through quite an ordeal; you've sustained fairly serious injuries and you have concussion. I want to keep you in, at least for a few hours, just to make sure that you're going to be okay."

"You don't understand, I have an important meeting at work-"

"I'm sorry, William, this is non-negotiable; if I let you go and something happens to you, I will be held responsible. I take a personal interest in all of my patients. Especially ones that I see on such a frequent basis…" the woman flicked through Horrible's records, oblivious to his fidgeting and fretting on the table in front of her.

"This is the twenty second time this year you've been to see me with some kind of injury that is the result of extreme violence. Ruptured eye socket, bruised lungs, knife wounds, head trauma… is there something you would like to talk about?" Billy looked at her in disbelief.

"No, no, I'm perfectly fine." The doctor frowned, and shook her head.

"You've always been a magnet for trouble, Billy," she said in an almost motherly tone, placing the rather large folder back onto her desk "but, this is getting serious! I promised your mother that I'd keep an eye on you after she…well. But to do that, I need to know what's going on. Is it money troubles? Gangs? If it's the same person, you really should tell the police-"

"No, seriously, I'm okay." said Horrible, watching as the clock hit the 6:15 AM mark. "But, please, Dr. Jones, let me get out of here; if I don't go to this meeting, I'll lose my job."

Dr. Jones thought about it for a moment, and then sighed in resignation.

"Fine, Billy, but I want you back here Wednesday to check up on you, and redress the wound. There are only a few stitches, they'll dissolve over time. Not much else can be done for your ribs other than the codeine I've given you." With relief, Horrible thanked her and headed out the door.

"But if you feel even slightly nauseous," called Dr. Jones from her office, "I want you straight back here!"

Dr Horrible strode quickly into the reception, paid for the pain killers he'd been given, and cast around for any sign of Moist or Captain Hammer. Lurking in a corner, Horrible spied the mess of damp, dark hair that belonged to his roommate.

"Good, you're okay then." greeted Moist, leading the way out of the hospital and towards his car. "What took you?"

"Family doctor mollycoddling me; wanted me to stay in for surveillance for a few hours, but I persuaded her out of it." They reached the busted up Polo, which lay inconspicuous amongst the mass of other white cars in the parking lot. In the back seat, Captain Hammer was in snoozeville, hugging a large slab of hyperdiamond.

"We got it then?" Moist looked at Horrible, slightly bemused.

"You don't remember?" Horrible shook his head as he strapped himself in.

"It's all kind of hazy; I remember getting shot and the roof caving in, getting Hammer out, but I don't recall much else." Moist relayed what had happened in Elementia's lair as they drove down the freeway. When he'd finished, Horrible stared at him, stunned.

"Hammer _killed_ a man? With my Death Ray?" The Doctor felt his gorge rise again.

"Yeah. A guard named Cedric O'Malley; it was on the news whilst you were in A and E. The place is absolutely wrecked and Elementia was so mad she almost vaporized the reporters questioning her."

"Did she say it was us?" Moist shook his head and the Doctor let out a shaky sigh of relief.

"She didn't mention Hammer, or even an escaping prisoner. I guess she was more preoccupied by the fact that her house now consists of one pillar supporting a large boulder. Surprisingly, everyone made it out alive. Minus…"

"How did we get out?" asked Horrible, eager to change the subject to avoid the burning sense of shame he now felt.

"Er, after Hammer grabbed the hyperdiamond, we pulled you out through that tunnel and out of the waterfall. We weren't chased; the guards took a different exit, a more direct one to the surface. I ran and got the car, then we got you out of the lab coat and drove to the hospital." Horrible nodded, and they drove in silence until they reached their apartment near Echo Park. The engine spluttered into silence, and the pair of them continued to sit there.

"I can't believe he actually _murdered_ that man." said Horrible finally, suppressing the guilt he felt and nodding his head towards the still sleeping hero.

"Wouldn't you of?"

"Who do you think I am?" said Horrible, affronted. "Killing isn't my style, you know that. The destruction of life just seems pointless to me."

"Well, technically, you did kill Penny…" Moist trailed off as his employer glared venomously at him. The Doctor turned away from his friend, his hurt expression impossible to miss. He clambered out of the car and slammed the door shut with all his might, jerking the slumbering Hammer awake.

* * *

Dr Horrible entered Professor Normal's office exactly three minutes and fifty two seconds before they were due to meet. No one was there yet, so Billy cautiously made his way towards the straight backed chair in front of Normal's desk. He sat down slowly, just in case the thing was rigged (he wouldn't put anything past the folk in the ELE; they were evil, after all) and, after deciding it wasn't going to fling him out the second storey window, he cast around the dimly lit room. The walls were covered in newspaper clippings and other articles boasting the scientist's misdeeds; Certificates of Evil, framed records of messages from the Bad Horse Chorus, even letters of praise from Bad Horse himself. There were a number of lethal and really weird looking instruments in cases all around the room, each with little plaques stating which famous heists they'd been used in. Not to mention the mass of 1st place science fair trophies.

All this made Dr Horrible feel very insignificant. He'd only ever placed 3rd at LA's annual science festival…

The doors in front of him swung open abruptly, startling the Doctor. Normal strode into the room, his metal hand clicking in a fearsome way. Horrible gulped. Oh, he was so done for…

"So, Dr Horrible." said Normal, sinking into his oversized armchair. Was it customary for all villains to have one of those? He'd bought one 'cause he kind of liked feeling small, like a doll, but maybe it was just a thing with mad scientists-

Billy shook his head. Focus! He could lose his membership in a matter of minutes!

"Professor." Horrible fought to control his shaking voice. He could feel the sweat starting to trickle down his forehead.

"I'm sure that you are very well aware of why you are here." the blonde nodded, keeping his eyes fixed squarely on a pot of pens on Normal's desk.

"Your conduct has been…less than satisfactory, to say the least, for one who is a fully fledged member of the ELE. I have discussed the matter with the board, and we have pondered much over whether or not you could be considered a liability for the League. You may not be aware of this, but your position has been under scrutiny for some time, and, after the events of last night, I was forced to press the other members of the League to come to a decision. We have not yet agreed on a course of action, as it is rare for us to deem one of our own as 'not evil enough' to be in the ELE. They-we-thought it best to question you about your intentions as a member of the League as well as listen to your side of the story before making an informed decision." Normal cleared his throat.

"So, have you anything to say for yourself, Dr Horrible?"

Billy swallowed, and tried to choke out his words. "I…er…" the Doctor felt his eye start to twitch, like it always did when he felt under pressure. Cursing himself, he tried to start again.

"Only that I am, er, truly sorry for the mishap at the warehouse, and that I-" Oh it was no use, he was certain that the ELE had already burnt his membership file and that this was only a formality. He coughed, intending on coming up with at least a half-decent exit speech, but the throat-clearing made his fractured ribs sear in pain. It obviously showed in his face, because Normal raised an eyebrow at him.

"Something wrong?"

"No no!" cried Horrible; he didn't want to seem weak. "Just need some aspirin." He fumbled in his pockets for the pain-killers, trying to keep a straight face, but he couldn't keep from wincing.

"You're injured." was that a hint of satisfaction in Normal's voice?

"I…stood on a rake. No biggy. Just winded me a bit"

"You stood on a rake…and it winded you?" Horrible could tell that Normal believed that poor excuse for a story about as much as he believed in the Easter Bunny.

"And somehow, said rake also managed to puncture your arm I presume? The blood has seeped through your coat, Horrible, I'm not sure if you're aware…"

"Oh crap…" the Doctor grabbed some Kleenex out of his pocket and dabbed at the dried stains.

"Would you like to try that again?"

"Okay," sighed Horrible, deciding to come clean "I got shot. With a bullet."

"You got shot?" Normal frowned at the nervously twitching man before him. "It wasn't in some botched suicide attempt, was it? I really haven't the time for the paper work that entails, not to mention referring you to a-"

"I didn't try to kill myself!" cried Horrible, attempting to steer their conversation back on course. Resigning himself to the fact that he had no other option he finally said the words: "I was at Elementia's."

"Elementia's?" Normal looked at the Doctor incredulously. "That was you? _You_ destroyed that bag's Command Centre? I find that hard to believe."

"I promise you, I did Professor. I used the Reductor Beam to destroy most of the walls, and a special invention of mine to knock out the guards. The place caved eventually. I'm sure the CCTV footage will show you that it was me."

"But why?"

Horrible pondered this for a moment. "I, er… as a stunt. I figured that I needed to do something pointlessly evil in order to remain a member of the ELE after you called. It was the best I could come up with."

Professor Normal nodded, but a satisfied smile was playing on his lips. Dr Horrible couldn't help but get his hopes up a little. Maybe, just maybe, he'd swung this.

"There is no denying," said the Professor slowly, "that what you did was an unnecessary act of evil. Evil for the sake of evil; something I didn't think you were capable of… you've impressed me Horrible. Maybe I judged you too soon…" Billy crossed his gloved fingers under the desk.

"I think that we shall let you remain in the ELE, at least for a little while longer. I would like to see what else you are capable of." he stood up from his chair, and headed towards the oak doors, muttering "Destroying a superhero's home for the sake of really peeing them off; I like it… should do it more often…"

Horrible remained seated even after the doors had swung shut, his mouth slightly agape in astonishment. Well, that had gone far better than he'd thought. Did all this mean that he was still in the ELE? He thought so. With a bit more of a spring in his step, the evil Doctor headed for the exit of the ELE Headquarters, feeling somewhat relieved. The pickled things in the jars didn't seem quite so gross this morning. Even the creepy-looking, green, two-headed guinea pig appeared to be grinning at him as opposed to snarling. The Egor's looked less terrifying and Snake Bite seemed to hiss at him in a slightly less menacing fashion. Okay, maybe that last one was a complete lie, but, hey, the guy was in a pretty good mood knowing that he had at least one last chance to be in the ELE.

He was in such a good mood in fact that he found himself giving Fake Thomas Jefferson a little salute as he strolled out of the doors. Jefferson watched Dr Horrible walk by him in a state of shock. Wha-what had just happened? Ordinarily, Horrible cowered at the sight of the great political leader, unable to look a superior in the eye. _Everyone_ feared Jefferson. Had he gone soft? Had he lost his evil touch? This had unnerved him.

Actually, it had unnerved the once American President so much that, by the end of the day, he'd had a nervous breakdown and resigned from his post at the evil heart of Evil League of Evil. This left the ELE with a big dilemma; who should replace him, Lord Voldemort or Sarah Palin?

Unaware that he had just upset the whole dynamics of the villainous group, Dr Horrible meandered down the streets that his feet decided to take him to, for once unaware of the stares of the civilians surrounding him. Before he knew it, he was outside a familiar building; a cheerful place, decked in pink and white striped banners. The frozen yoghurt shop, where he used to buy his and Penny's laundry-doing snack. He hadn't been to the place in…

Billy checked the date on his watch. Three months. That was how long it had been. Horrible frowned, still staring at his watch. It was weird; in some ways, it felt like it had been nearly a lifetime since the accident. In others, he felt like it had happened just hours ago. The Doctor looked up at the shop, a little confused. He thought it would've hurt to be here, but… it was odd. Very, very odd. Horrible actually felt kind of…at ease? He supposed that it was because he'd never actually _been_ here with Penny. The place just triggered memories. But happy ones. Smiling a little, Billy walked tentatively towards the door and stepped across the threshold.

The place was as warm and inviting inside as it was out. Sixties style chairs and tables were arranged near the large windows, gazing out into the busy road outside. For a few moments, Horrible soaked in the atmosphere. The place was the same, completely unchanged. He doubted that anyone here realized that their kindest, most caring customer was gone from the world. Billy closed his eyes. He wasn't going to ruin this for himself. Taking a deep breath, he headed over to the counter where a perky looking teen girl was stood in the customary bright pink uniform.

"Hi, what can I get for you today?"

"One- no, actually two- strawberry frozen yoghurts please." the girl smiled and hurried off to get his order, only glancing questioningly at his lab coat for a moment. She returned a minute or two later, clutching two Styrofoam cups.

"That's five fifty please."

The evil Doctor dropped the money on the table, once again forgetting the perks of being a super villain. He strode quickly from the building, smiling sadly to himself and holding on to both freezing cups of desert. The man walked purposefully through the streets, making his way several blocks from the shop until he came to a standstill at a pair of wrought iron gates. It was still sort of early, but luckily the gates were unlocked, meaning that Horrible could shove the things open with his elbow. His shoulder flared for a moment at the contact with the gate, but quickly settled. There were no other people in the area surrounding Billy. At least, not living.

Scanning the neatly cut grass, Dr Horrible slowly walked amongst the slabs of marble and granite. He had no idea what he was looking for. A plaque? A headstone? She deserved a monument with all the angels carved perfectly in glistening white marble, but he knew that what he sought probably lay further in.

Billy's footsteps echoed sonorously through the deserted rows of resting places. Every now and then he would stop, as his eyes caught a glimpse of something that might've been it, but each time, it turned out to be a false alarm. After some time of meandering amongst the dead, Horrible began to have his doubts; was he in the wrong location? Was it possible that she didn't even have a place to sleep beneath the ground? Was it unmarked, nothing more than a mound of soil?

Just as he was about to give up and go home, he found it; there, nestled between two larger and more extravagant headstones! He hurried closer. The name leapt up at him now, yes, this was the place. The thing was dull grey, nothing spectacular, not like the pure white and gold gilded stones beside it, but to Billy, it was far more beautiful. Where it sat was more lovely than he could've imagined; beneath a red-leaved tree, with the sun just filtering through the branches just enough to illuminate writing etched on the stone:

_**Penelope Jane Fitzgerald**_

_**May 12**__**th**__** 1980- July 19**__**th**__** 2008**_

_**Step softly, a dream lies buried here**_

Not many flowers lay at the foot of the grave, and those that did were dead or dying. Tags showed that they were from colleagues at Caring Hands. Billy sifted through the remnants. Odd; none from her family. He looked up from where he was knelt, and he felt his stomach lurch slightly. Two more graves, further back, both aged by years of standing there. The surnames were the same as hers, the dates of birth matching with what her parent's would have been. The dates of death stating that they were gone when she was just eleven…

How had he never known that?

The Doctor shifted the brown petals and stems, and then rummaged through his pockets. His hands closed on what he was looking for, and he pulled them out, clutching a packet of rose seeds. Billy tore the packet open and sprinkled them on the ground. A little test tube was then drawn out from within the Doctor's coat, labeled Fluropheptamine Senescence Accelerating Agent. He poured a couple of drops onto the seeds and, like in one of those videos everyone has to watch in Year Seven Biology class, the roses began to grow at an immensely sped up rate, until the flowers just began to open. Billy nodded as one of the last buds bloomed, rather chuffed that the stuff had actually worked. He then placed one of the now slightly melted frozen yoghurt pots next to the flowers, took a few paces back, and sat beneath the tree, looking at Penny as he ate from his own tub.

* * *

Moist was, well…moist. But for an entirely different reason than usual. It was still perspiration, granted, but it had nothing to do with the great humidifier that his father had made him use to combat his dry skin when he was a child. Moist was stressed. And for good reason, too. He had gone off to bed almost the moment he'd gotten in, mainly to avoid the awkward silent treatment Dr Horrible was giving him after their discussion in the car took a wrong turn. Anyway, he'd woken up a couple of hours later, walked out of his door and BOOM! Disaster! An unmitigated disaster! How it had happened, he didn't know, but the Doc had better get his ass back home pretty sharpish, because they needed to do something, fast. Captain Hammer was of no use of course, he may as well ask be asking a donkey for help. He had spent the best part of an hour shoving every questionable item in their house (which was all of it to be honest) into the secret vault room. He had to get it out of the way, he had to hide it all! Someone was bound to notice, someone would be calling the police or something, and this crap could not be on display when they came round…

The door swung open just as Moist was bundling a dismantled computer keyboard into a black bin bag, and the poor henchman almost had to be carted off to hospital for the shock. He closed his eyes, half expecting half of the LAPD to be trooping into the apartment. Fortunately, it was just his employer…singing?

Well, he _was _singing. He stopped abruptly when he saw that he had an audience. And a massive hole in the front of his living room.

"Wha-wha-wha…?" stuttered Horrible, his head snapping between Moist and the rather large vent that had somehow been created, which looked onto the street below. Walking carefully towards it, Horrible could see that a crowd was starting to gather by the rubble, staring up at the apartment five stories above them, pointing and chattering in confusion and fear. He quickly leant away from the gap to avoid being seen clad in his red coat.

"How did this happen?" he hissed, looking around the hastily cleared room. Bits of metal and circuitry still lay on the floor, but he could actually _see_ the floor, for the first time in who knows how long. Had the carpet always been that shade of grey…?

"I don't know Doc, I really don't know," replied his trusty henchman. He looked suspiciously at Hammer, who was eating a peanut butter sandwich next to him. "We need to get the rest of this stuff moved ASAP; the police-"

"The Resurrect-Ohm-Meter!" cried the Doctor, suddenly gripped by fear. "Is it-?"

"It's safe; I checked." Billy let out a slow, relieved breath. "It's still in your room though; I couldn't move it, it was too big to go through the door."

"That's fine, that's fine, so long as it's okay." he cast around the now somewhat deserted room. "Where did you put it all?"

"Vault room. Figured we could move the bookshelf in front of it. I got it all in as fast as I could. But _he_-" Moist jerked his head at the munching super-hero "- was no bloody use whatsoever."

"I was eating my lunch!" whined Hammer with his mouth still full. "You can't interrupt lunch!"

"Hammer?" started Dr Horrible, rather cautiously; all the palaver of last night had sort of made him reconsider his opinion on the Captain. "Did you see what it was that gave us an open-air living room at all?"

"Well yeah. Your big ray gun that was over there." He pointed to the spot where Horrible's Freeze Ray had been, the absence of which the Doctor hadn't noticed seeing as though half of his apartment had been demolished. As well as there being no Freeze Ray, there was also no Johnny Snow…

"Fetch me my Freeze Ray, Moist." grumbling, the henchman slouched off towards the Vault Room. He returned a couple of minutes later, bits of wire stuck in his hair, and handed the ray to the Doctor, who took it into his arms and carefully examined it.

"It must've powered down or something," mumbled Horrible to himself "but I don't understand how it could've caused that…" he took out the batteries of the gun, and a sticky substance went all over his gloves. Yes, one of the batteries had leaked (damn those double A's) but that didn't explain…

"Oh!" cried Horrible, slapping a hand to his head and accidentally splattering himself with battery juice. "Of course! I didn't even think that that might occur!"

"Er, care to explain Doc?"

"My Freeze Ray, it must've interrupted the space-time continuum; if we take that spacetime is continuous and smooth as stated in the theory of general relativity and that the future is fixed and unchangeable but has several possible outcomes, then freezing Johnny Snow would've caused a massive disruption in the process of creating certain events, as a number of his actions will have determined certain possibilities for the future…meaning that when the ray powered down, he would've had to catch up with everyone else as he would've been stuck at about eleven o'clock last night!"

"And all this relates to the massive hole in the wall _how_?"

"It's quite simple." said Horrible, much to Moist's disbelief. "Snow had to speed up in order to catch up with the rest of us and make the universe more stable again. Obviously the fastest way for that to happen was for him to go through a nine inch thick brick wall."

"So...are you saying that by freezing a wannabe superhero you almost destroyed the universe?"

"Well…in a way, yes."

Breathing heavily, Moist turned his back on Billy and gathered up the remnants of junk that littered the floor.

"What happened to Snow then?"

"I'm guessing that he's probably smeared across half of Los Angeles by now."

"Eh? I thought he had to catch up with us?"

"Yes, but that won't protect him from the repercussions of busting through a building at a hyper accelerated speed; what's left of him will join us in the present eventually, albeit not in one place." The scientist shot his henchman a slightly disgusted look. The pair could imagine all to well what Johnny Snow would look like round about now. Needless to say, he wouldn't be winning any Miss World competitions…

"I knew there was a reason I didn't like math." sighed Moist.

"_That _was _math_?" Hammer looked incredulously at the Doctor. "I though it was a horror story!"

Horrible stared at Hammer with his mouth hanging open in disbelief at the super-hero's stupidity. Just as he was about to come out with a smart-ass comment, there was a loud knock on the door and a muffled yell of "LAPD, open up!"

"Quick Doc, your coat!"

Billy tore his lab coat from his back and shoved it and his goggles into the Vault Room, pushing the bookcase in front of it after he had done. He then hastened to throw his quilt over the Resurrect-Ohm-Meter and shut his bedroom door tight as Moist let the police in.

"Okay guys, what happened up here? I'm pretty sure that you've realized that half of your house is on the pavement outside."

"I..er…" stuttered Moist, unable to come up with a decent story that wasn't going to land them all in a cell for an indefinite period of time.

Dr Horrible was going to interject but, to his surprise, Hammer got there first.

"It was a gas leak. Yeah, a gas leak; just blew the wall clean out." the cops looked at Hammer suspiciously.

"Mmmhmm, if you know how it happened, how come you didn't call someone?"

"The phone line went along that wall, so it got blown up with the rest of it."

"Not think to use cells?"

"He," said Hammer, nodding at Billy "was out and my friend here didn't have a battery ready. I don't have a cell phone."

"Neighbors?"

"Already gone." he raised an eyebrow in a rather theatrical way. "What's with all the questions, Officer? Don't you trust us or something? You have something against three men living in an apartment that happens to blow up? I don't think that's our problem somehow; I think you should be asking our landlord why it is that his property just went kablooey don't you? Ask him why it is that he hasn't had the gas checked recently, even though we've complained for _weeks_. I smell a lawsuit. If he had called the gas dudes, this wouldn't have happened, would it?" the police officer quailed under the taller man's stare.

"Of-of course! I'm sorry to have offended you, Sir. We do need you guys out of here though, this apartment isn't safe, although we've checked the rest of the building and it seems pretty sound; I'm sure we'll be able to arrange it for you to move across the hall for the mean time. That sound alright?"

"Yes that would be fine. Thank you, Officer." The LAPD guys trooped out of the building, with Captain Hammer, Dr Horrible and Moist following. When they were outside, Horrible turned to the Captain.

"That was…"

"Pretty quick thinking, wasn't it Dr Horrible?"

"Surprisingly, yes." The Doctor stared up at their apartment and cringed for two reasons; one being the awful image of flying through a solid building at over thousand times normal speed, the other being how long it was going to take to move all of their stuff across to the vacant apartment 53. Out of the corner of his eye, Horrible could see Moist looking rather sheepish, standing the way he always did whenever he felt guilty about something. He supposed he felt bad about earlier, but right now, Horrible's mind was too involved in correcting the event that Moist had mentioned that had made him so upset.

"So…I never asked you how your meeting went…."

"Oh yeah, that." replied the Doctor distractedly "It went fine, perfectly fine; I'm still in. Which is good. I'm just thinking…"

"What are you thinking?" asked Moist, rather apprehensively. Whenever the Doc was thinking, bad things happened.

"What we are going to do next. The machine still needs work; several important components are still missing and I still need to calibrate it properly… but there is something very vital that we are gonna have to acquire before we can do much else. A week tonight should be a good night for that…"

"Halloween? Why? I don't like this…"

"Moist, Halloween would be the perfect cover for what needs to be done…"

"Oh no!" cried Moist, catching on. "No way! That would be creepy enough if we did it in broad daylight. We are _not_ doing that Halloween night. Forget it!"

"We have to do it then, Moist! It's the only way!"

"What are you two on about?" Hammer was stood staring at the pair of them arguing, looking completely bamboozled. "What are we doing Halloween? Trick or treating?"

"Oh no," grinned Horrible "something _much _better. Lets just say, by next week, the LAPD will be looking for this century's Burke and Hare…"


	9. Chapter 9

**Finally finished this chapter, and, again, sorry for the delay; I procrastinate WAY too much. Again, I'd like to thank the lovely people who reviewed for doing so, they really do make my day =). Please, please, please, if you you have time, tell me what you think of my story, how I could improve it etc etc, all comments are useful, and I love getting them. Cyber cookies and hugs to people who review too! So you can't lose! =D**

**So, chappy 9. Hope you guys enjoy it =)**

Chapter 9

The face paint slid out of its pot wit a sickening 'plop' onto Horrible's palm. The Doctor and the Captain both peered at the grey sludge, half expecting for it to get up and start slithering away.

"You not seriously putting _that_ on my face, are you?" Hammer scrambled away from the foul smelling paste, looking revolted. He looked a little odd dressed in a ripped tee and shredded jeans.

"I've already done it, so you've got to." Dr Horrible approached the man, looking equally bizarre with his face painted in a deathly pale way, hair dyed jet and slicked over the back of his head, a black cloak over his shoulder and a pair of fake fangs lodged in his mouth. "But your paint didn't look like porridge and smell like dog muck!" Hammer ducked away as the scientist closed in with the gunk.

"For God's sake, hold still! We need to be _incognito_ for this plan to work!" and with that, Horrible splattered the stuff into the hero's face and began to smear it into a zombie-ish mask, amidst Hammer's protests. By the time he was done, Hammer looked as dead as his arch-nemesis.

"Ugh, this smells gross," whined Hammer, turning to look at himself in the mirror "_and_ I don't look like my normal, handsome self!"

"That's sort of the point; nobody is meant to know who we are. That is why it's called a disguise." Horrible turned away from the complaining Hammer, to look around their new apartment in an attempt to settle his nerves. It didn't work; the place didn't have that soothing smell of geraniol esters, but instead reeked of bacon. It hadn't surprised him that the last occupant had died of a coronary- from just the state of the oven he could tell that the guy had had enough fry-ups to put pigs on the endangered species list. Number 53 was also smaller than their old home, meaning that their clutter was still stacked in boxes all over the shop. The Resurrect-Ohm-Meter stood silently in the kitchen where the fridge used to be. Well, he had needed the sockets…

The Doctor began to pace, as he always did in such stressful times. He tried telling himself that there was no need to worry. Their plan was simple, and very little could go wrong; go to the graveyard, do the unspeakable deed and arrive back at the apartment. No biggy. Except that this was a BIG biggy. Without Penny's body, he couldn't bring her back to life. And if the LAPD caught them in the act- he shuddered to think what would happen to them if that happened. Probably spend the rest of their days in a psycho ward…

"Moist!" called Horrible, unable to bear waiting any longer. "Hurry up!" There was a muffled yell in reply and then the bedroom door swung open and the henchman, with some difficulty, waddled into the room.

"Mo-ist," sighed Horrible, rolling his eyes "I thought you were going as a werewolf? How are we meant to do a Twilight double-act now?"

"I tried Doc, but the hair kept sticking to my hands. I went to the costume shop whilst you were doing your make-up, but this was all they had left."

"You look like Sebastian from 'The Little Mermaid'…" his roomie was indeed dressed in a bright red lobster outfit, complete with giant pincer hands.

"Well you don't look much like Edward Cullen to me anyway…"

Horrible shrugged. "I didn't have enough body glitter and one of the contacts fell in the loo, so I decided to come as a vampire instead." The Doctor grabbed his Stun Ray (which he had decorated for the occasion with plastic spiders, webs and a stuffed bat), a Jack-O-Lantern treat pot, and led the way out of the apartment. Outside was a wooden deliver trolley, which the villain gestured for Moist to start pushing, a task made rather difficult when he had to get the thing down five flights of stairs without opposable thumbs.

* * *

"Okay just a little to the left…straighten it up at the back, Moist…Hammer, don't let go! There!" after ten exhausting minutes, the wheels of the trolley hit the ground floor heavily as Moist let go, panting. He didn't get much chance for respite though; the Doctor was already striding towards the exit, vampire cloak swishing behind him and Hammer hurrying to keep up. Wishing that he'd decided to go into business like his father had said, rather than crime as his third grade teacher had suggested, Moist started shoving the trolley forward which, as Murphy's Law dictates, had a wonky wheel.

The sun was setting over the city streets, but the pavements were still swarming with trick-or-treaters, all of them in costumes ranging from extravagant to evidently-home-made-by-mum-five-minutes-ago. For once, Horrible actually fitted into society, with no one giving him weird looks for his costume. Small children and teens made up most of the Halloween crowd, but there were adults amongst them too, on their ways out to parties and the like, meaning that the trio could blend in seamlessly. Horrible made his way carefully through the people, all too aware of the LA cops that mixed in with the halloweeners, keeping the peace and making sure no one tee-peed the nearby houses.

"I love Halloween." said Hammer in a hushed, excited voice, his head snapping around to look at the decorations in people's yards. "Ooo, a Monster Bash! Can we go in? I've got this great party move where I stand on my head like this-"

"Not now, Hammer!" hissed Horrible, grabbing the idiot's sleeve. Around them, the people were getting in tighter, pushing and shoving Horrible and Hammer forwards in an eagerness to get to the park for some reason. Moist was stuck in a throng of teenagers a little ways behind, unable to move the trolley forward without mowing down a little kid. Confused, the henchman craned over the rushing crowd to see what all the fuss was about.

"Hey Doc!" he called, making his employer spin around. "There's something going on at the podium!" he thrust a claw, smacking a passerby full in the nose, at the white stage where most of the costumed people were heading. Horrible turned to look at the podium, standing on tip toe to get a better look. What he saw was…

The Doctor blinked, hard, sure that he had got it wrong. It couldn't be…not possible…

"Change of plan." the scientist grabbed Hammer by the collar of his shirt, tugging him towards the podium and beckoning for Moist to follow. Slowly, they made their way nearer, and Horrible had to restrain himself with every ounce of his being to stop himself from barging through the crowd to reach the front. Because on that stage, and he could hardly dare to believe it, was a red-haired somebody, wearing that _exact _dress, holding herself in the same way-

They had reached the edge of the crowd now, and still, Horrible could hardly see; the curse of being short. He stepped backwards onto the trolley that a puffing Moist had just wheeled behind him. It just gave him the extra height for him to be able to see the woman on stage. Yes, she was dressed like Penny, she was even stood like Penny, but she wasn't her. She also wasn't alone.

"What's going on?" hissed Moist, watching the people on stage with a look of befuddlement. Next to the girl who looked like Penny, was a man dressed in a black tee with a hammer printed onto the front. The girl was swooning, or pretending to swoon, into the not-Hammer man's arms whilst he sung lyrics to a song that they couldn't make out. There were a bunch of other people on stage too, cheering and clapping…

"I-I don't understand…" said Horrible, although inside, he really did, and knew what would be coming any moment now. He could feel his face burning already-

Sure enough, a man dressed in his lab coat and his goggles strode across the stage, cackling and fired a fake gun at the man playing Hammer, who went into a freeze frame. The Penny screamed, and cowered away from the Doctor Horrible, who burst into song:

"_Look at these people_

_Amazing how sheep'll_

_Show up for the slaughter-"_

Horrible stared, dumbfounded; Penny hadn't screamed, what were they on about? She hadn't been scared of him, she hadn't leapt into Captain Hammer's arms! She hadn't been in sight when he'd made his appearance!

"_-Why can't they see what I see_

_Why can't they hear the lies?"_

He didn't walk like that, and he most certainly didn't sing like that! And he hadn't sneered at Penny, or glared at her, ever! Where had they got all this from? Why were they buying this utter crap? Horrible _knew_ that some of these people had been there, why the hell were they going along with it, when it was all wrong?

"_-Your disguise is…slipping. _

_I think you're…slipping-"_

Numbly, Horrible watched the remainder of the song, watching as his counter-part prowled the stage, threatening both the people on stage and the crowd (who would shriek in mock fear each time) with the glammed-up water cannon in his hands. When the song ended, he watched as the Hammer unfroze and stepped in front of the Penny, to protect her. Horrible's gorge rose.

"_You won't touch her, Doctor Horrible! I won't let you hurt her!"_

"_Bah, I'll kill the pair of you, I don't care who I murder! I want the world at my knees, I want everything I ever. But most of all, I want you to hurt, Captain Hammer, so I'll kill her, and anyone else who gets in my way!"_

Billy could feel himself shaking, but couldn't turn away. He stared as the Doctor Horrible aimed the gun and, as if in slow motion, shot Penny, unable to contain a yelp of anger and upset as the actress crumpled to the floor. Captain Hammer stooped to the floor, sobbing, and cradled her in his arms.

"_Penny, hold on, no no no no no-"_ The girl was heaving on the floor, lolling against the Hammer's chest as the Dr Horrible walked across the stage with a triumphant grin on his face. The real Dr Horrible stared at them, wondering how much worse this could possibly get, how much of a different turn this 'reenactment' could take.

The answer: a lot.

"_Captain Hammer,"_ Penny gazed up at the man above her with a look of adoration, gasping for air. Her hand reached out to touch his face, and then raised her body a little to kiss him on the mouth. She then fell back against his arms and breathed the words: _"I love you…"_

Billy let out a strangled choking sound as the woman on stage slumped. He barely heard the onstage Hammer's cries, the rest of the lines, his character's closing song, or anything else really. Even the crowd's wild cheers and applause as the cast took their bows didn't drag him out of his stupor. He glanced over at Moist, who was still watching the stage, a little shocked. Billy, unable to stand any longer, sank onto the trolley. He felt sick, actually felt sick. His heart thudded dully in his chest, and a dull thrum filled his ears. He could see that Captain Hammer looked completely unbothered by the play, and even Moist was beginning to get over his original surprise, and was starting to get fidgety, tapping Horrible with his claw in an attempt to get him to move. The other people had dispersed now, and Horrible could see the members of the production more clearly, leaving the stage and heading towards them. Billy's eyes sought out the Penny; there, between two groupies. Close up, Dr Horrible could see that she looked nothing like Penny; her hair was obviously dyed red, she was taller and bigger than her too. Her face was rounder, and her eyes were blue. Nothing alike…

"Doc," Moist was still tapping his roomie on the shoulder "we need to get moving, if you want to get it done tonight…" Horrible let out a little grunt, and shuffled off of the trolley, getting to his feet. Like a sleepwalker, the Doctor made his way out of the park and back onto the busy streets. The people all around were chattering happily, many of them complimenting the performance. Horrible couldn't believe it; were they all morons? Did none of them realize that none of the things they had just seen were true? Not a single one of them seemed to notice that it was him who had held Penny, that the Hammer had stolen the lines that should've been the Dr Horrible's? That Penny had never said…never said…

"Can we hurry this up, I want to go trick-or-treating at _some_ point!" Captain Hammer was stood, tapping his foot at the Doctor, who had been stood stationary at a junction for about a minute. Horrible clenched his fists; this guy obviously didn't realize how close he was to getting a fist in the face at the moment, didn't understand how much Horrible_ hated _him right now. Had always hated him…

"Yooo hooo, Doctor Horrible!" Hammer was shaking his shoulder now. Billy tried not to recoil, tried not to flinch at the man's touch. He didn't want to be anywhere near this guy at the moment, or ever again. "You said that you wanted to do it tonight, so lets go!" The ex-hero waved a hand in front of his face. "I think he's been paralyzed. Anyone see a Basilisk around?" Ugh, how could she of ever stood to hear this guy's voice, have him whisper to her? How could she have…how could she possibly…?

"I think he didn't like that play very much…" said Moist, trying to pat Horrible on the back, but only succeeding in poking him in the back of the neck with his giant lobster hand. He heard Hammer say something about it being very good, but complaining about how the guy who played him looking nothing like him. Whilst the idiot was spouting off, Moist at least tried to cheer his friend up a bit.

"You sing way better than that guy who was playing you, he couldn't hit half the notes you can. Plus he didn't pull of the whole look very well." he muttered, nodding as Billy's lips twitched a little "And I know the details were…off. Don't let it get to you-"

"Who said it was getting to me?" Horrible forced a grin. "I was just thinking about…what to do now." He strode forward, not looking at Hammer.

"I think we should take West 73rd; it'll take us on a more populated route, so we won't look suspicious. Following the road along, it should be easy enough to slip into the graveyard unnoticed."

"Great," said the Captain, rolling his shoulders and stretching "does this mean that you're finally putting your plan into action?" The Doctor looked at his enemy for a moment, before grinning widely. But it wasn't a normal grin, more the kind of grin you see on a person that got a joke no one else did.

"Yes. Yes I am."

* * *

Horrible, Hammer and Moist made their way through the darkened streets of LA without incident, mingling in with the steady trickle of people enjoying the night out with their friends. Dr Horrible decided that Halloween was probably his favorite holiday; it was the one day of the year where being weird, being abnormal, being _different_ didn't get you funny stares or abusive comments fired at you. Beat Christmas; what was the point in giving presents to ungrateful, undeserving people? Not like he gave anyone any presents anyway; wasn't like he had anyone to give presents to in the first place. Or anyone to give him presents in return. Other than maybe Moist.

After not long at all, the trio found themselves stood under the streetlights outside the graveyard, the iron gates wide open in welcome. Beside him, Horrible felt Moist shudder; the air felt colder, the night stiller. Maybe it was in his head, but Horrible thought he could hear something in the distance…

"You here for the Ghost Walk, boys?" came a voice from behind them, making all three men shriek in fright. But it wasn't the voice of the undead who had spoken to them, just the old undertaker. Horrible had forgotten that they always did graveyard tours here on Halloween.

"Yeah, yeah we are." the elderly man chuckled at them.

"You sure you lot are going to be alright, if you scare that easy?"

"We'll be fine. Three tickets for the Ghost Walk, please." Doctor Horrible handed over a few dollar bills, and they joined a small group of others.

"What're we gonna do?" hissed Moist in his ear

"We'll ditch as soon as we can."

The group in front of them began to shuffle forward, and the villains and hero hastened to join them as they made their way past the mass of graves. In the trees, cheapo decorations had been hung from the branches, so that the folds of polyester cloth would flap feebly in the wind. Cardboard cut outs of ghosts and the like were dotted around the gravestones, a couple fallen over from the breeze. It was all pretty tacky. The undertaker at the front was spiraling off some ghost story at the head of the group. No one was paying any attention to the three men at the back of the group.

"Now!" murmured Horrible, silently slipping off the path and sprinting towards cover in a thicket of trees. He could hear the crunching of autumn leaves and long grass as Hammer and Moist followed, the odd hollow bang echoing through the darkness as Moist's large lobster hiney smacked against the marble stones.

As soon as they heard the voices of the Ghost Walk people begin to fade, The Doctor head off across the burial grounds again, aware of how freaky it was being there at such a late hour on Halloween. He kept jumping at small noises and literally waiting for some kind of wraith to jump him and drag him to his death. He was shocked (and relieved) when they reached Penny's grave unscathed. Hammer and Moist stood back as the scientist thrust his hand under one of the roots of the tree by the grave. In the light of the moon, it was easy to see the guy was quite glad that no zombie hand grabbed him as he pulled out a shovel from the hole. Horrible weighed it in his hands before chucking it, rather hard, at Captain Hammer who managed to snatch it up.

"I like how I always end up doing everything…" grumbled Hammer "I feel like I'm your lackey…"

"You are. Now hurry up and dig, we don't want to get caught!"

Rolling his eyes, Captain Hammer thrust the shovel into the ground directly in front of Penny's grave. There was a loud crunch as it contacted the dirt and rocks, and, with a heave from the hero, a large mound of earth came loose. Hammer dumped it out of the way, and attacked again, and then again. Even with his superior strength, it was going to take a while.

"Moist," said Horrible after a few silent minutes, his henchman spinning round at the sound of his name "go over there by that bench and keep an eye out for anyone snooping."

"But, there could be ghosts over there! I don't wanna stand on my own!" the villain shot Moist a look, and the man grudgingly shuffled over to the memorial bench that Horrible had pointed out. He would've sat down, but his stupid costume made even that very difficult. He was now sort of regretting dismissing the slutty nurse outfit.

Now that Moist was out of the way, Dr Horrible could get doing something he had been intending on doing for a long time; a task that had brought to the forefront of his mind by this night. A task involving revenge…

Hammer was too busy toiling away at digging up the grave to notice that the villain had slipped away, darting behind the tree whilst he fiddled with his phone. He peeked at Hammer from behind the trunk. Good; he wasn't watching. Moist, too, was turned the other way, probably on the watch out for goblins, ghouls and Scooby Doo. As silently as possible, Dr Horrible stepped out, and clicked the camera button on his phone a couple of times.

"Hey, Dr Horrible!" called Hammer, making the Doctor almost drop his gadget in fright. Luckily, the man still had his back to him. "I think I've reached it!" There was one last scraping sound, followed by a clunk. Hammer dropped his shovel and bent down, heaving out a large, heavy item from within the hole he'd dug. Snapping one last shot, Horrible stowed his phone back into coat and hurried over to help lift the coffin out of the grave.

"Careful, careful, careful! We don't want to drop it!" Horrible stumbled back from the weight of the box. "Moist, get the trolley!" The henchman galloped over and shoved the trolley beneath the coffin, which Hammer and Horrible laid down with a slight thud. The Doctor ran a hand over the worn mahogany, dusting the remaining dirt off of the top. The little plaque was scuffed, but her name was still readable, carefully etched onto the brass plate.

"Quickly, fill it back in." glaring at Horrible, Hammer picked up the shovel once more and began filling the hole, the Doctor and Moist helping by chucking the earth in with their hands. Or in Moist's case, claws.

The grave still looked uneven when they had finished, the missing lumps of grass a dead giveaway that it had recently been disturbed. Horrible frowned, worried that it might betray them, but he supposed that it didn't matter; they would be long gone by the time anyone realized there had been a grave-robbery. Horrible eyed the trolley as Moist adjusted his grip on the handles, looking at the coffin in particular. He couldn't help but feel a little disgusted at himself for doing this- digging up people was just a little bit…weird. But it was creative, right? He was _giving_ life, not taking it, so he figured that it was probably okay to nick corpses in that such case. Just so long as he didn't make a habit of it. Else people would talk. It had been bad enough when he had had to explain his way out of the whole fiasco with that bulk order of naked mole rats to Mrs Coopes next door. Wasn't his fault that he hadn't been in to collect them off the deliveryman. Also wasn't his problem that they chewed through her phone cables.

"Doctor Horrible? Doc, you hear me?"

"Mmmhmm?" mumbled the Doctor, drawn out of his musings. "What?"

"I just said, how are we getting this coffin home without half the LAPD swooping down on us? By hearse, or are you going to make me run back and get the car? " Dr Horrible shook his head and then sighed.

"A coffin won't fit in the car and, anyway, it'll be far easier than that; I didn't bring us down here on Halloween night just because there was nothing on TV except SAW 2481, you know. This is literally the only night of the year where you can waltz down the high street carrying your head under your arm or brandishing a chainsaw without anyone looking at you funny. Seriously, no one is going to bat an eyelid at us carrying a coffin."

"Genius!" cried Hammer, looking thoroughly impressed, unlike Moist who still looked skeptical. Horrible had said the same thing about 17 crates of dynamite they'd had shoved in egg boxes at Easter…

"Well, I _am _an Evil Genius. I have a PhD in horribleness to prove it."

And with that, Dr Horrible burst into his most outrageous evil laugh. Moist had to admit, he was impressed; seemed like all those singing lessons- sorry, _vocal coaching_ sessions- had paid off.

* * *

Moist couldn't believe it when they made it all the way around the corner of the block without anyone so much as looking at them shiftily. The Doctor, for some unknown reason, insisted on sitting on top of the coffin whilst Moist pushed, saying something about 'keeping up the façade' or the like. Moist wasn't fooled though; he knew that Billy had never ridden on a trolley before, something that just about everyone had done at some point in their youth. And after all the trouble earlier, the henchman hadn't felt like denying him this. Plus, he suspected that he could get fired if didn't.

"Carefully around the corner, Moist." said Horrible as they rounded onto their home street.

"It's not fair, I want to ride on the coffin, too." grumbled Hammer.

"I can let you push it if you want." suggested Moist. Dr Horrible spluttered a protest but, too late, Hammer had already grabbed the handles off of the henchman.

"You tip me onto the pavement, Hammer, and I swear to God I'll stuff the gap between your two ears with enough TNT to blast your remains to Mars."

Captain Hammer ignored the villian's complaints, and carried on pushing the trolley. Man, this reminded him so much of how he used to drive the Ham-Jet; two big handles in his palms, a slight twist and it'd obey him. Hammer jerked the trolley, lost in his daydream. He could remember the breeze wafting through his wafty hair… Hammer quickened his pace, oblivious to both Moist's and Horrible's warnings. He would always fly to the tune of 'Don't Stop Me Now' whilst he blasted ELE members from a height with missiles and stuff. He'd been so upset when a man from a shop called The North Korea (Hammer assumed that was the name of a Chinese restaurant) had bought it from the nasty repo-men. He missed it so much; he could just imagine swooping and diving and-

The wheel of the violently swerving trolley had gotten lodged in a drainage grate, jolting Hammer out of his little fantasy. Unfortunately, the sudden halt had also jolted Dr Horrible and the coffin into a large pile of garbage on the sidewalk. The Doctor floundered in the mess, his cloak trapped underneath the box…the lid of which had come open when it had hit the pavement. And dangling out of it…

"Oh no!" cried a mortified Horrible, trying, and failing to free himself. A dazed Hammer, who had fallen to the floor on impact, crawled towards Horrible in an attempt to free him, but only managed to stumble and fall on him as he tried to get to his feet.

"You-you-" stuttered Horrible, words failing him in his anger. Furiously, he shoved Hammer off of him. "Moist! Moist, get the-" the scientist gestured furiously at the open coffin, which a horrified henchman was waddling as fast as he could towards. The Doctor tried desperately to cover up a well preserved, but clearly deadened arm. Penny's skin was yellowish (well, being in the ground for three months tends to do that) and there was a rotten stench beginning to creep out from her coffin. Moist hastily shoved the limb back inside, but some of the damage couldn't be undone.

"Mummy," a young child was stood, only feet away from them, staring transfixed at the three men and the coffin in horror. "Mummy, I see dead people." the little boy was tugging at his mother's sleeve, pointing at the now closed coffin.

"Yes sweetie, it's Halloween; there are a lot of dead people around."

"No, mummy, there was a woman in that coffin and _she wasn't breathing_!" in a panic, Horrible flapped his arms at the kid, trying to get him to shut up.

"That's very nice, honey."

The woman pulled her son along behind her as she carried on down the street. The little boy watched Dr Horrible and the others with suspicion until he and his mother had rounded the corner out of sight. The Doctor let out a shaky breath. That had bee too close. In fact, every time he did anything with that stupid, moronic Hammerman, 'way too close' always seemed to be an outcome.

"How," hissed Horrible, grabbing a hold of Moist's arm 'am I meant to be the world's greatest villain with _him_ around?"

"You could always kick him to the curb." Horrible watched Hammer shake a rat off of his foot, a look of disgust on his face.

"I wish, but I need his strength; that serum won't work on anyone but him or me… damn DNA compatibility. And you saw the side effects I had..."

"It won't be for much longer, though." said Moist, helping the Doctor get rid of the bits of banana skin from his hair. "Soon all of this will be done with and you can send him packing. It'll be just the two of us again."

"And Penny."

"Yeah, well…" Dr Horrible shot his friend and angry glare, before hauling the coffin back onto the trolley.

"It _will_ work, I assure you." he said, reversing the trolley, and setting off back down the street once more. Horrible lowered his voice, making it hard for even Moist to catch his next words. "And Hammer will be finished. I'll uphold my end of the deal, but he'll be finished. I guarantee it."

The Doctor wheeled the coffin around into the lobby of their building, the wheels squeaking and sliding on the linoleum flooring. Together, the three men (somehow) hoisted Penny's body and her coffin up the five flights of stairs without mishap, and, after twenty minutes of hissed curses and death threats, heaved it into their apartment.

Horrible slumped on the floor, exhausted. His make-up was running, and he looked almost as sweaty as Moist, which was saying something. But there was still some work to be done.

"Moist, fetch those large grey canisters from in my room, would you?"

"The ones saying 'DANGEROUS: DO NOT HANDLE WITHOUT TRAINING OR LIFE INSURANCE'?"

"Yeah, those ones."

Shrugging, Moist ambled into his boss's room and returned moments later, rolling two containers with health warnings plastered over literally every inch of them. The liquid inside sloshed loudly as they came to a stop at the Doctor's feet.

Quickly, Horrible grabbed one of the canisters and pulled it over to the tank of the Resurrect-Ohm-Meter. A number of tubes dangled over the side. The Doctor grabbed one of them and rammed it into the cap and fetched the second container, doing the same thing.

"Stand back." Hammer and Moist happily complied as the scientist flicked a switch on the machine. There was a loud sucking noise, like a vacuum-cleaner, and then a green liquid began to be drawn into the tank, splashing down the sides.

"What _is _that?" asked Hammer, peering into the tank. "It looks like Lime Jello."

"It's a stem cell based chemical, containing too many compounds to bother naming." Horrible affectionately stroked one of the containers. "It's illegal in every state of America, other than Alaska. It regenerates cells, would be great for treating amputees if the acidity, high mercury levels and presence of asbestos and arsenic didn't kill you before the neutralizing agents could be administered." As the tank filled to the top, the Doctor switched off his machine. The bizarre substance swirled around the glass sides of the tank, glowing eerily in the darkness of the room. Horrible shrugged of his cloak as the last bits of fluid dribbled into the tank, replacing it with his normal, more comfortable lab coat. Spitting the fangs into the sink and ramming on his goggles and gloves, Billy approached the coffin that was laid between Hammer and Moist.

"I'm gonna take of the lid now." he said softly, handing the pair masks and nose clips whilst putting on his own set. "It's going to reek worse than your gym socks, Moist, so try not to breathe too deeply." Moist and Hammer backed off as Dr Horrible slowly lifted the lid once more. The smell hit them harder than it had on the streets, being no wind or anything to make it drift off. Captain Hammer retched, despite the protective gear, and Moist became paler than usual. The Doctor had to swallow hard as the stench hit him full in the face. Eyes watering behind his goggles, Billy carefully opened the wrappings. The rest of Penny's corpse was as well preserved as her hand had been, but the papery, sunken skin was a dead giveaway that she was, well, dead.

Her red hair was fanned out in the base of the coffin, dry and wispy but still the same. Her eyes were shut and were it not for the smell, she could've been sleeping. She looked exactly the way Horrible remembered her, and, even in death, she still had a kind expression on her face. Gently, Billy lifted the body out of the box, carrying it to the tanks. Then he ascended the ladder that was stood at its side, bringing him high enough to open the lid of the now full tank.

"Press that red button."

Moist tapped the button Horrible had gestured towards with his claw. The lid of the tank automatically slid open, revealing the solution's bubbling surface. The Doctor attached a bunch of wires to different parts of Penny's body before carefully lowering her into the tank. She floated in the chemicals, the wires looking like the string of a marionette, looking rather eerie for a few moments, before bubbles began to fizz around her, obscuring her from view. Horrible couldn't help but smile; finally, they were making progress.

Unable to contain himself, he opened him mouth and began to sing.


	10. Chapter 10

**Lo siento! Lo siento! Oh, I am terrible at updating, grr, I need to get my act together! Past few weeks have been hectic, just got my GCSE results (straight A's and A*'s...I'm such a boff) and I've had to transfer schools 'cause my dumb ass comp can't let me do English Lit, English Lang and Biology. Sigh. So, looks like I'm off to a school in a different county, completely on my own in a town that I don't know at all. Fabulous...**

**Anywho, my complaining aside, Chapter 10. Not sure if I like this one as much as my last ones, I just hope you don't find it too dull. Massive cyber hugs to the lovely people who reviewed again, and I bribe potential reviewers with plates of cyber flapjack!**

Chapter 10

"_Tonight's big story on 'News LA'- Police still unable to find leads on the theft of a body at the Angeles Rosedale Cemetery."_

"_The grave was discovered to have been disturbed on the 2__nd__ of November, but it is believed that the coffin was removed two or three days previously. The grave was that of a Miss Penelope Fitzgerald, believed to be the serious, long term girlfriend of the fallen super hero, Captain Hammer. Fitzgerald was murdered three months ago, the first victim of the infamous Dr Horrible, one of LA's most feared villains."_

"_So tragic. And such an awful crime."_

"_Yeah, I hope they catch the sick bastards who did it. What kind of a psychopath steals a corpse?"_

"_A pshyco one."_

"_Ha ha! In other news, Gerard the Budgie has learnt how to water-ski!"_

"_A water-skiing budgerigar? That's a new one!"_

"_We go over to Simon, who has the latest on this bird's new found hobb-"_

Dr Horrible flicked off the television set off without looking up from his work. He was sat staring at a monitor that was linked up to the Resurrect-Ohm-Meter, pummeling the enter key over and over.

"Work already, you stupid computer!" he snarled "Argh!" the monitor had flashed blue and powered down for about the tenth time in as many minutes.

"You alright?" came Moist's voice from the bathroom.

"Yes, yes, just the computer messing me about again…" Horrible aimed a kick at the tower. The thing was harder than it looked, and all he got for his efforts was a very sore toe. Cursing, the Doctor grabbed a hold of the tower and shook it hard.

"For God's sake, just _work_!" the PC spluttered back into life and began to load again. Sighing, Horrible resigned himself to the fact that he was going to have to enter all the data…again. Eventually, after a minute or so of whirring, the programme he was using popped up again with a little hum.

"Scan brain…yes, yes, I clicked 'okay' already… decode synaptic connections, sync with hippocampus and cerebral cortex… yes, I wish to proceed, or why else would I of clicked it? Scanning… still scanning… I know you're still scanning… hurry up, before I'm fifty… yes, yes, yes, commence visual memory conversion… for goodness sake, _yes_! Jesus, how many times do they have to ask you if you want to proceed?" Horrible tapped in a couple of commands and waited for the computer to register.

"What? File corrupt? How can it be corrupt, it's her memories!"

"Try turning it on and off again!" Moist's voice was muffled by the sounds of water gushing from the tap.

"Done that three times already and the computer did it itself double that!" Horrible groaned as the download bar popped up again.

"That does it, I'm making coffee." the weary Doctor shuffled over to the kettle and popped it on whilst he shoved some Nescafe Original into a chipped mug. He'd been up, what, three days trying to access Penny's hidden memories? Yes, it was the 13th; as soon as the tank chemicals had rebuilt all of Penny's cells (which had taken the better part of a week), he'd started on the long task of turning brain connections into video files (thank God for 21st century technology…and an IQ of 179). At first, it had been easy, and the computer had just puttered along, but now… he had to get access to the memories even Penny herself couldn't remember, stuff she'd forgotten, or thing's she had shoved into the deepest corner of her mind. Intruding into her most private memories made Horrible feel a little uneasy, but it had to be done; he would have to re-stream the memories back to her during the resurrection, unless he wanted her as a mindless zombie. But he needed the memories for another reason… he wanted to change a couple, make it so that, when she awoke, she saw Billy as more than a friend…

The kettle bubbled to a boil, and the Doctor absentmindedly poured the scalding water into the mug and all over the table, lost in thought a little. To be honest, he wasn't all that sure how exactly he could alter memories. It would be impossible to visually alter them; they would become too unrealistic and who knew what would happen if that occurred. No, he could do nothing to what Penny had seen… but maybe physical memories? As in, her feelings? That might be easy enough, he could alter the amount of certain hormones her brain recorded sending at a particular time. Horrible sipped his coffee, nodding. Yes, that would work…

"Download complete. All data converted to file. Save progress?" the electronic voice made the Doctor jump out of his skin. Slamming the mug down, Dr Horrible raced towards his machine, skidding to a halt when he reached the monitor.

"Save, save, save!" he cried, pounding enter again.

"Can you keep it down?" Horrible rolled his eyes as Hammer's voice floated over from his bedroom. No, correction, _their_ bedroom. Horrible shuddered. He _hated_ sharing with that…man, but the stupid apartment didn't have enough rooms, the lounge was too cluttered for the sofa (all of the stuff in Horrible's vault room, including his Equation's Board, were piled in the living room) and neither of them wanted to share with Moist. For the obvious reasons. So it had come to be that the arch nemesis' had to share a room. An arrangement the Bad Doctor did not enjoy one bit.

"Whatever." replied Horrible, too busy watching Penny's visible memories and statistics load to pay much attention to Hammer's complaints. The load bar was 78%...83…90…97…99-

An e-mail icon popped up in front of the load bar just as it completed. The Doctor looked at the sender. Professor Normal, ELE. That was odd; Normal hadn't called on him for awhile- last time was just after Horrible and the others had retrieved Penny's body, and that was just for some help on the general building of the Professor's own Resurrect-Ohm-Meter. The other mad scientist had said that he wouldn't require Horrible's assistance until the final parts had been delivered; the processor and its components, the piece of equipment required for life to actually be given to any corpse wired up to the machine. But those were out of stock, they weren't meant to arrive for weeks…

Dr Horrible double clicked the e-mail. It said only two words: '_It's finished.'_ Instead of being all excited, the Doctor groaned loudly.

"No, no, no, why did he have to finish it today? Why?" Didn't Professor Normal know that he was extremely busy? Actually, come to think of it, Horrible didn't want him to know; he could only imagine what would happen if the Professor found out about the duplicate machine in Horrible's apartment.

The Doctor sighed. He supposed he would have to wait to look at Penny's memories. Billy picked up his goggles and snapped them in place. He wondered how Normal had got the parts so quickly… maybe he'd found another seller instead of the guy that was living in a cave in Scotland. When he was finished adjusting his headwear, Horrible looked longingly at the 'Open file?' button that was hovering in the center of his monitor. His fingers itched to accept, but no. He snorted with ill-contempt. First, he would have to go help Normal with his machine.

"Moist, Hammer! I'm going out! _Don't_ touch the computer!" there were two grunts of acknowledgement, which Horrible took for yeses. Just before he left, the Doctor looked over at the Resurrect-Ohm-Meter one last time. He could see the figure that was Penny, floating and wired up in the green-filled tank. The computer monitor shone onto the glass, illuminating the red-head's face in an eerie manner. Letting off one last, annoyed sigh, Dr Horrible set off to the ELE.

* * *

The stairs leading down to the lab were as dark as ever as Dr Horrible descended them to meet up with Professor Normal. On his way, the Doctor had carefully kept track of how many security cameras there were in the ELE building from the entrance hall to the labs. Nine-hundred and seventeen. Not to mention the lazer beam sensors, motion detectors and caterwauling alarms. Those were all going to pose some serious problems. But, he had also checked the rota for the guards, and was pleased to find out that it would be Stock on night duty for the next three days. So thank God for small mercies.

"Ah, excellent. You took your time." Professor Normal was waiting outside the metal doors, tapping his foot impatiently. "I hope you bought those fig rolls." The other scientist had messaged Billy on his way down, insisting that he bring three packets of the snacks.

"Yeah," replied Horrible, taking the packs out of his coat "what do you need them for? Do you need them to power the machine?"

"No, I'm starving; I've not eaten in days." the Professor ripped open one of the packets with his metal hand and shoved a handful of the rolls into his mouth.

"Oh…" Billy mentally grimaced at his stupidity. Of course they were for eating! How could he have thought that they were to power the Resurrect-Ohm-Meter? All that panicking that he had missed something on the blueprints for nothing…

"Now that you're here…shall we get this show on the road?" Professor Normal strode through the metal doors, with Horrible in tow. The laboratory looked vastly different from the last time the Doctor had visited; most of the desks had been pushed against the walls, the scraps of metal and tools gone, the clutter cleared. It even looked like the Professor had gone over the place with the vacuum cleaner. The Resurrect-Ohm-Meter stood grand and tall in the centre of the room, far bigger than the one Horrible was housing in his apartment. The machine was whirring with life, the computer flashing as it loaded data. Weirdly, the invention too had been cleaned of the oil and grime that had coated it previously. Horrible found all this preparation strange, until he saw the rest of the ELE seated around the back of the Resurrect-Ohm-Meter. Snake Bite, Fury Leika, Dead Bowie, the newbie, old Voldie, Tie Die and even the terrifying, the _terrible_ Bad Horse himself were sat watching the machine, with anticipation, glee, but mostly with boredom. They were evil; they had more evil things to do than watch presentations. Weren't those sort of things for grade-schoolers?

"Neigh!" Bad Horse tossed his head, glaring at the two scientists with one dark eye.

"Bad Horse says can we hurry this up; he has an appointment with the farriers at twelve, and then he's getting his mane trimmed after."

"Yes yes, I promise that myself and Dr Horrible will not take up too much of your time; however, I felt the need for you to witness the first resurrection using my Resurrect-Ohm-Meter." the Professor strode towards the monitor at the front of the machine, arms held up towards the thing for dramatic effect. Dr Horrible followed and sat himself down at the screen.

"As I told all of you before, the purpose of the Resurrect-Ohm-Meter is a very simple one; it raises the dead, as suggested in its title. The construction of this machine is a highly convoluted process; one I don't expect the likes of Voldemort-"

"_Lord_ Voldemort! Do not anger me, or else I will Avada Kadavra you…"

"-to fully grasp. Nor do I expect any of you, other than my Horrible friend here, to truly understand how my device really brings the dead. I shall only say, it requires a great deal of data imputed into this computer here, the use of an ununhexium and uranium compound as a power source, enzyme-rich chemicals used to rebuild decayed organic matter and my newly acquired processor-" the scientist gestured at cylinder shaped object visible in a glass case that connected the computer mainframe to the actual machine "-that I recently purchased for an absolute steal on that bidding site, e-bay."

Dr Horrible mentally facepalmed himself. Why did he always forget e-bay? He had always had a bit of a grudge against it after he'd spent $20 on a lucky cat that never bloody turned up, but, seriously, he needed to check that place out more…

The Doctor waited impatiently as Normal went through all the ins and outs of the machine, ploughing through his presentation even though he was clearly boring everyone so much that he would probably have to resurrect the entire ELE after it. Bad Horse snorted every now and again, stamping his hoof. Snake Bite appeared to have gone into hibernation and Dead Bowie was playing Angry Birds on his iPhone. All the while Horrible sat, fingers itching to start the resurrection process so that he could go home and look at Penny's memories.

Finally, after forty five minutes, the Professor said "Doctor, start streaming the extracted memories to our subject!" with relief, Billy typed in a few commands and the computer whirred, its electronic voice screeching out "Memory log transferring. Please wait." Horrible could hear the buzz of the electricity as it sped along the wires, heading towards the wired-up figure floating in the tank.

"We must carry out the memory stream," shouted the Professor over the noise of the machine "in order for our villain here to regain use of his powers. Without this crucial step, he wouldn't remember how he used to operate in the criminal world, what his skills were, or even that he used to belong to the ELE. In fact, he would be a mindless zombie. Obviously we would miss out this stage were we to resurrect an army of zombie civilians, but I wanted to restore this deceased ELE member to his full evilness, as I think that his abilities will prove invaluable in future evil-doing." Normal pulled a large lever and punched a number of buttons, spurring the main part of the Resurrect-Ohm-Meter into life. Tubes flashed an array of colours, coils of electricity zipping through them. The machine roared, the processor shaking slightly as it worked to decode the instructions Horrible was furiously typing into the computer. The two scientists had their peer's rapt attention now as the device spat and sparked, working at full capacity in order to restore life to the figure in the glass tank.

"Horrible, it's almost ready! Inject the neutralizing agents into the tank!" The Doctor complied, and the liquid in the tank fizzed violently, clouding the person in the tank from view.

"Power 100%! Restore life-force now!" Billy pressed the red button (why was it always red?) on the desk. The machine went silent. The room was still and anticipation turned to disappointment. Normal couldn't believe it; how was it possible? His inventions _never_ failed, ever! He angrily turned towards Dr Horrible, who looked at the scientist, his eyes wide like a deer's in as set of headlights. Horrible must've done something wrong, the fool! Probably imputed the instructions wrong… oh, he was going to have his head on a platter for this, for making the great, the genius Professor Normal look like a complete and utter berk, he was-

The Professor's murderous train of thought came to a halt as the Resurrect-Ohm-Meter let out an almighty roar. The members of the ELE gasped in shock, and Normal turned around to see the interior of the tank glowing a brilliant white. All of the sudden, the whirring began to slow and became nothing more than a quiet hum, and the light began to dim. The figure in the tank, which had once been floating completely unanimated, was now thrashing around, swimming towards the roof of the tank in an attempt to get air. Normal hurried over to open the tank. The lid slid open, and out climbed a soaking wet, but clearly alive super-villain.

"Ladies, Gents and Stallions, may I present to you the newly revived: Lord Lucan!"

The man before them was wearing clothes that looked like they belonged out of the Victorian period; a dripping wet waist-coat, sopping pinstripe trousers and a velvet top hat, which was sagging a little from being submerged in the tank. The man raised a gloved hand in greeting as the other ELE members welcomed him back into the fold. After muttering a thanks to Professor Normal, Lord Lucan lodged his monocle into his eye and addressed the ELE.

"Well, it is utterly _spiffing_ to be back amongst my comrades in evil antics." Horrible watched the resurrected guy with interest; he had never met Lord Lucan before; he had died several years ago, when the Doctor himself was nothing more than a small-time criminal. As he continued to talk to his old friends, Billy noticed that Lucan spoke with a British London accent, and that even the words he chose were as old-fashioned as his outfit.

"-many thanks again to Professor Normal, my old friend, for allowing me to once again terrorize LA, a past-time that I delighted in for so many years prior to my premature demise." the Lord clasped hands with the Professor, and, for the first time as he looked over his comrade's shoulder, noticed Dr Horrible."

"Who the bloody hell are you?" Billy startled, stuttering for a moment. Professor Normal rolled his eyes.

"That is one of our newest ELE members, Dr Horrible. He assisted in the construction of the device that brought you back." Lord Lucan smiled at Horrible, which made the Doctor twitch nervously. Lucan raised an eyebrow at Nomal.

"He seems a little…jittery to be a member of the ELE. Doesn't look like real ELE material"

"He has been a bit of a liability in the past, yes, but he has had his uses." Normal paused for a moment. "In fact, he has done you a massive favor."

"Has he now? How exactly?"

"He defeated that bafoon who murdered you…what's his name…Mister Spanner?"

"CAPTAIN HAMMER?" Lord Lucan's head snapped back over towards Dr Horrible, who looked like he was about to pass a brick.

"You killed him, good Sir?" Horrible gulped as Lord Lucan came up close to him. The guy's breath smelt like…raw meat? The Doctor gulped.

"Not exactly…"

"But you defeated my arch-nemesis, yes?"

"Well…technically, he's _my_ arch-nemesis now…and yes. Yes I did." Horrible thought that Lucan was going to pull his hand off, the way he was wringing it so hard.

"Jolly good job, my fellow! I feel we are going to get on _horribly_ well." he chuckled at his own joke.

"Now, who else is new?"

"NEIGH! PRRRR!"

"Bad Horse says that Lord Voldemort is the only other new guy and that if this doesn't finish in the next five minutes, he's Death Whinny-ing."

"Voldemort? Isn't he that baby tattoo artist?"

Snake Bite clapped a hand on the Dark Lord's shoulder as he hissed with fury, his fingers inching towards the folds of his cloak. Dead Bowie cleared his throat loudly, warily watching the pale guy trying to reach his wand.

"Sooo… Normal, is Lord Lucan still able to, you know, 'do his thing'?"

"I believe so." Normal grinned at the man next to him. "Care to give it a try?"

"Certainly chap!"

Intrigued, Dr Horrible leant closer to see what Lucan's 'thing' was. He regretted it almost immediately. The man let out a blood-curdling howl which almost bust Billy's ear drums. The Doctor fell to his knees, clutching his ears and waiting to see what the hell the racket was actually doing. The room seemed to be shaking; Horrible swore that the flasks and vials on the pushed back tables were quivering, particles of dust jumping around. Then, after a few minutes, the doors burst open and some weird…wolf…things leapt through it, stumbling with excitement to reach their master.

"My underlings! My babies!" Lord Lucan was laughing as he stroked all the yapping dog hybrids. They looked kind of gross, all boney with massive fangs and huge ropes of drool hanging from their muzzles. The strange thing was, there was almost humanoid element to them.

This was why Dr Horrible remained firmly a cat person.

"My little pookies," cooed Lord Lucan, scratching several of the creatures behind the ears "have you been good boys whilst Daddy's been away?" To Billy's shock, the mutts actually replied, with low gravelly voices.

"Yes! Yes! Been very good!"

"Yes Daddy!"

"I'm sorry Daddy, I pooed on the carpet!"

"Well, I think that this is sufficient evidence to prove the validity of my machine." Professor Normal walked over to the surrounded Hound Master, trying to avoid the slobbering dog things as well as he could.

"You are all free to go. Lord Lucan, I need to discuss a few things with you, regarding your resurrection. You need to know, you will experience a few rather severe-"

The monster's yapping reached an irritatingly loud climax as their master's attention turned to Normal. Dr Horrible, unable to take the noise and desperate to get back to his own little project, leapt to his feet, crossed the lab and hurried out of the ELE as fast as his legs could carry him.

* * *

"This file was downloaded from a remote source and may contain viruses or malware. Are you sure you wish to open file?"

"YES, for the love of God, yes!"

Finally, after days of waiting and swearing, the video files popped up. Dr Horrible clapped his hands together with glee. This was it, this was it, this was _it_!

"Moist! Moist, get in here, it's finished! I've got them, I've got her memories!" The henchman raced into the room clutching his razor. He looked between the grinning Doctor and the screen, a shocked 'o' on his face.

"It's worked? It's _actually_ worked?" Moist took the mouse off of Horrible, who was sat with his arms folded proudly across his chest. His flatmate shuffled through the years of catalogued memories.

"Hey, October 12th 2005! Isn't the day you met?"

"What? How the hell do you know that?" Moist rolled his eyes.

"Seriously, you talked about her so much that day I could never forget."

"Play it." his friend complied, moving the slider to about ten in the morning. Through Penny's eyes, they could see that she was on the same street as the Laundromat. Horrible felt his heart stop as Moist hit 'play'.

Dr Horrible watched as Penny headed towards the Laundromat's entrance, her eyes shifting down to check on her load. The door tinkled in its familiar way as she pushed her way into the cleaning shop. He knew exactly what was going to happen next, but it was so strange to see it happen through her eyes. Penny turned her head, and her gaze landed straight on his younger self. Dr Horrible saw their eyes meet, and cringed as he saw his jaw slack. Penny looked away quickly, probably out of embarrassment and then there was a loud 'bang'. She turned to see what it was to find the man who had just been staring at her sprawled all over the floor. She hurried over to help the Doctor up, placing her washing on one of the machines on her way.

"Are you alright?" her voice was just as Horrible remembered it and it made his heart pound to hear it again.

"Mrrffle…" the Doctor grimaced as he watched himself splutter and stammer at Penny, and finally stagger to his feet unassisted, blushing redder than a lobster. As Penny returned to her laundry, Moist paused the memory.

"Did you see it Doc?"

"See what? Me make a complete fool of myself?"

"No, no, her stats." Moist slid the slider back to the moment just before their eyes first met and played it again.

"See! There! Right there!" he pointed at the chemical levels in Penny's system.

"High amounts of Adrenaline…" Dr Horrible felt his stomach jolt. Then he shook his head. "That could mean anything…"

"Heart rate raised, by a fair bit. Large amounts of Serotonin and Dopamine are also in her system. Now, I'm no chemist but…"

"Th-that can't be right!" furiously, Horrible fast-forwarded a bit. He watched random parts of her day, and noticed that there were random releases of Serotonin in her system…

Dr Horrible felt his mouth slack, unable to believe it. He went to a later date, to the time when he and Penny were meeting up at the Laundromat. She was sat next to him, and he could hear them talking about something, from the look on his face, probably Captain Hammer. Suddenly, he remembered what particular day that had been. Surely enough, her hand reached out to his shoulder. Horrible watched his own face contort into a shocked expression. But the present day Doctor's face mimicked his past self's; he stared at the stats on his screen, unable to believe his eyes.

"High quantity of Adrenaline recorded…" Horrible put a gloved hand to his mouth. "I don't believe it…"

"Well, at least this means that you won't have to change anything." Moist stopped the screen once more. "This does mean what I think it does, right?" Horrible nodded slowly.

"I-I think so. Penny- but no, she can't have, she was with Hammer… I don't know, but this suggests that…Penny, Penny, she was-"

"Penny was what?" the Doctor and henchman almost fell off their chairs. Captain Hammer was walking towards them, stretching and yawning.

"Nothing, nothing." Dr Horrible turned to the hero, smiling in spite of himself.

"She was the ginger, right? Dorky kid, kept going on and _on_ about some homeless thing." Hammer headed towards the fridge, and Dr Horrible quickly turned the computer off.

"Oh, you fixed your computer? Can I play 'Space Invaders' on it yet?"

"No!" Hammer pouted, clutching a bag of crisps. "I have a job for you anyway."

"I'm not going into another super-hero lair."

"No… I need you to get me some sweets. And a radio. A walkie-talkie sort of thing."

"What kind of sweets d'you need?"

"I don't care. Chocolate. Bon-bons. Haribo. Anything."

Captain Hammer nodded, smiling knowingly. "They're for your sciency thing, aren't they? For, like a potion or something?" Horrible stared at Hammer in disbelief. Was he honestly _that_…?

"No, I want to eat them you idiot!"

"What, the radio too?" Horrible sighed. He seemed to be doing that a hell of a lot.

"Just get them for me."

"Why can't you get them yourself?"

"I've got to be…somewhere else." Moist looked curiously at his employer, immediately aware that he was hiding something. He tried to catch his eye, but the blonde was purposely looking away from his friend.

"In fact, I had better get going." The Doctor adjusted his goggles and vacated his seat.

"Radio and sweets!" he called behind him as he strode out of the door.

* * *

A little while later, Captain Hammer was strolling down the street, grumbling about the unfairness of it all. Why did he _always_ end up doing everything for that horrible Doctor Horrible, huh? He felt abused; that evil scientist could make him jump through hoops and he couldn't complain, 'cause else he would refuse to permanently restore Hammer's strength. He wasn't sure if the Doctor realized that he was going to give him hell as soon as he gave Hammer back his powers; they had never discussed being all buddy and friendly _after_ Hammer had finished doing all of that meany's chores and stuff. Oh, the Captain was going to punch Doctor Horrible's lights out, and everything was going to be back to normal. The Doctor would be groveling on his knees…

The little sweet shop was right on the corner of the high street, and was swamped by kids that had just got out of school for the day. Hammer shoved his way through the crowd, getting a lot of funny stares off of the teens gathered around the door. The door opened with a cheerful bell tinkle. Pushing his way past the school kids, Captain Hammer made his way to the till, ignoring the children's annoyed shouts.

"Hey," said Hammer, grinning at the man behind the counter. He looked less than impressed.

"What'd ya want? I ain't time for chit-chat…" Hammer raised an eyebrow at the man.

"Well that's no way to treat a customer." The cashier didn't really seem to care much about shop-keeping etiquette, judging by the death-glare that he was now giving the hero. Hammer's smile flickered a little.

"Fine. I'll have some sugar mice… a few liquorish allsorts…a scoop of Haribo Star Mix…a load of jelly beans and chocolate peanuts. Oh, and chuck in a couple of bon bons too." the server gritted his teeth and began to shovel the candy into a large paper bag.

"That'll be $3.70." Captain Hammer blinked rapidly.

"Sorry?"

"$3.70."

'What was that again?"

"I _said_ that lot'll cost ya $3.70." the man tapped his foot impatiently, hand held out in expectation. Then Hammer realized; the man expected him to _pay_.

Captain Hammer had never paid for anything in his entire life.

And Dr Horrible hadn't given him any money.

"But, I'm _Captain Hammer_!" said Captain Hammer pointing at his t-shirt and smiling winningly. "Savior of the people, local hero and all."

"Never heard of you."

"Well, I don't pay. I don't have any money, and to be frank, you civilian people owe me for saving the city so many times."

"On your bike." the man glared at the confused Captain angrily. "You heard me, get out! You can't pay, don't stay!" the cashier grabbed hold of a nearby broom and brandished it threateningly at the Captain, who hurried out of the door, amidst the jeers of the angry teens that he'd pushed in front of.

Well, how rude!

Captain Hammer huffed outside the shop, wondering what he was going to do next. He didn't have any sweets, and he didn't have a clue where he was going to get a radio from. He glared at all the laughing kids that were stuffing their faces with sugar and e-numbers with jealousy. He couldn't believe that man had refused to give _him_, Captain Hammer the sweets, after all he had done of this damn city! And not only that, he had chased him out like some common normal person. And those kids had laughed! Hammer felt like everyone had forgotten all about him…

A little girl bumped into him, almost sending the hero flying as she rushed away clutching a bag of sweets. It was like nobody saw him anymore. Hammer didn't get it. He watched the kids surrounding him, sharing their sweets with one another, giving them to and taking them from their friends.

That was when it clicked; if he couldn't get anyone to give him the sweets for Horrible, then he was just going to have to _take_ them…

The Captain sidled up to a lad with a particularly large sack of candy, trying to be as inconspicuous as he could with his 6"2 bulk. The boy was busy laughing with his friends, hardly paying any attention to the paper bag that was hanging limply in his hand. The kid saw Hammer looming over him at the last moment, but he was too late; quicker than a viper on red bull, Captain Hammer's hand shot out and snatched the boy's bag.

"What the- hey!" Hammer hurried away from the scene of the crime as quickly as possible. Oh, he was good! It was a wonder that he had never got a medal or something for his reflexes. Hammer smiled to himself; oh yeah, he had!

"Stop _right_ there, mister!" halfway back down the road, the hero stopped in his tracks. Slowly, he turned around to see a haughty-looking police woman stood with her hands on her hips, the boy Hammer had nicked the sweets from standing beside her, fuming.

"This kid says that you stole his sweets?" the cop looked disgusted at him. "That true?"

"Maybe…" said Hammer guardedly, clutching the bag closer to his chest. The woman shook her head, glaring angrily at Captain Hammer.

"Well, why don't you just give them back, and then this won't have to go any further." she patted the pistol in her belt, a threat that anyone whose name wasn't Captain Hammer would've got. But the Captain was looking at something else in the officer's belt…

Without even thinking about it (which, lets be honest, isn't something that Hammer was famous for), the hero started towards the cop, beginning with a slow walk and gradually building up pace. The woman watched the strange, strange man as he quick-walked towards her, doing odd skipity jumps every now and then. Now, she was an LAPD officer, she was used to these sorts of nut-jobs staggering around doing weird things, but this guy was seriously bizarre. He had a hammer emblazoned on his chest, had stolen a kid's bag of sweets and, according to the shop keeper she had talked to, thought he was some kind of super hero. Her hand inched towards the tazer on the inside of her jacket as the man started sprinting. With just seconds before he smashed into her, she whipped it out, but just as she was about to pull the trigger…

BAM!

The man's palm collided with her chest, and the officer felt the wind being whistling past her face. There were screams, hurried footsteps, and then a great deal of pain as she slammed into the ground and several school kids. Breathless and clutching a probably broken arm, the cop staggered to her feet, intent on putting a few rounds through this git's skull. But, to her shock, she found that she was at least a hundred feet away from the fleeing mentalist, who was weaving through the stunned onlookers up the street.

"Hey! Get back here unless you want to know what happens if you mess with a DeLauny!" Officer DeLauny stumbled after Captain Hammer, shoving civilians aside. It was no use; he was too fast, and she was too badly hurt. She reached down to call for back up, but, she grasped nothing. Confused, DeLauny groped at her belt. Nothing there.

"What…?"

Where the _hell_ had her radio gone?

* * *

Dr Horrible returned from his…business to find Captain Hammer lounging on the grubby carpet, playing Uno with a somewhat unwilling looking Moist.

"I pick…green."

"You always pick green…you've not even _got_ any green cards!"

"So? I pick green!"

"But-but- oh, look Billy's back!" The Doctor didn't think that he had ever seen his henchman looking so glad to see him. Moist mouthed a very sincere '_Thank you' _before being barged aside by Hammer, who handed the villain a massive bag of candy and a walkie-talkie.

"Oh, you got them then?" Horrible rooted around in the paper sack. "Ooo, Red Vines, my favorite!" munching on the red stick, Dr Horrible assessed the little radio, flipping it over in his gloved hands.

"Excellent…this will work. I think." He picked up a screw driver and opened up the little device, examining its circuits. After a bit of fiddling, Billy winkled out a circuit board and a little black box and popped it on his desk, to add to the machine later.

"Right. There is only one thing left that we need to get, and the Resurrect-Ohm-Meter will be complete."

"And I get my strength back?" Captain Hammer was glaring hard at Horrible.

"Yes, yes."

"Doc, to get this thing you need for the machine, do we have to go into the ELE?" Horrible fidgeted with his coat for a moment.

"Um…kind of."

"By 'kind of' you mean 'yes'?"

"Well, you could say that." Moist groaned loudly. Great, first a graveyard, now the ELE. Couldn't any of the components for this stupid thing be found at Wal-Mart? Come on, it was probably the only shop where you could get a child's chainsaw and a litre of chocolate milk on the same isle.

"Anyway, I thought we could go tomorrow night."

"Can't, I've got a date."

"Fine, the day after."

"The Red Socks are playing!" Dr Horrible glared at Captain Hammer with such venom that he actually quailed beneath it.

"I could…record it?" Billy smiled. Oh, he felt powerful! And happier than he had ever felt before. In just a few days time, he would have Penny back.

He would have all he had wanted.

Everything he ever…

**Just a quick end note, I don't normally do these but, just to let you know, next chapter is the last chapter on the building of the machine, so you can all jump for joy! HUZZAH! The wait and stifling boredom is nearly done. But the fic isn't... oh no, there is still much MUCH more to come...which is either a good thing or a bad thing, depending on whether or not you like this story. Also, this thing is a hell of a lot longer than I intended it to be. Sorry, I ramble so much. All the little ideas in my brain keep yelling at me, going 'pick me!', 'pick me!' and I don't like leaving any of them out, so...**


	11. Chapter 11

**Phew. Apparently, the only thing more difficult than breaking into the ELE is _writing_ about breaking into the ELE...  
My writers block aside, I am again eternally sorry for the delay. Please forgive me. Pretty please? This was the most difficult chapter to write, mainly because I had no idea as to how I was going to do it without boring everyone to death. Can't say I'm over the moon about it, but it was the best I could do.  
I do promise to finish this fic; heck, I've already written the last chapter, and I AM gonna post it, even if it kills me!  
So, Chapter 11. Hope y'all like it! =D  
Oh yeah: I promise a nice big plate of [insert imaginary digital confectionary here] to anyone who reviews! Woo!**

Chapter 11

After being stood in the pouring rain in the middle of a thunderstorm for two hours, _two __hours_, outside of the ELE headquarters, the frozen Dr Horrible had learnt three things:

Never trust your henchman to turn up on time.

Lab coats aren't very water proof.

Sanctums always look 100x scarier at night in the middle of a storm.

The heavens had opened the moment Captain Hammer and Dr Horrible had stepped out of the subway, and had relentlessly pounded the pair with fat droplets of water ever since. Both were drenched to the bone, freezing cold, and very, _very_ annoyed at the man running down the street to meet them.

"Sorry I'm late!" cried Moist as he splashed his way towards the arch enemies, splattering them with more mud. Billy's eye twitched as a particularly large blob hit him on the face.

"I didn't mean to…" The death glares from two men made the henchman trail off into silence.

"Tell my hair that you didn't mean to…" grumbled Hammer, trying to un-plaster a lock from his forehead. The gel that normally kept his brown hair in pristine condition was now running down his face in snail-like trails. In the light of the moon, it gave the impression that his skin had bubbled up in gelatinous zits. Which wasn't a particularly pleasant sight.

"Lets just get inside before one of us drowns…" the Doctor shot Moist a venomous glare that suggested that he blamed him for all this, and that told the henchman that he should probably steer clear of any particularly large puddles.

In an angry (and awkward, on Moist's part) silence, the three of them trudged towards the ELE headquarters, which loomed up ahead. Lightening flashed across the sky, illuminating the Victorian-esque fore building and the large nuclear waste plant at the back. Dr Horrible gulped at the thought of the momentous task in front of them. Stealing from a super-hero like Elementia was one thing, but the _ELE_… that was an entirely different kettle of fish. Or batch of cookies. Whatever. All Horrible knew was that this was going to be harder than the last missions on Assassin's Creed 2 and that if they failed, they would probably find themselves hanging from the dungeon ceiling by their toenails and on the receiving end of a Death Whinny terrifying enough to make Chuck Norris make a mess in his pants. The Doctor knew the corridors of the lair like the back of his hand, but getting that processor, avoiding the security cameras… they'd be lucky to get back out with the correct number of limbs.

The buildings grew closer and closer, getting more foreboding as the three men neared the entrance. In the darkness, the Doctor could just about make out a towering figure stationed by the doors, lumbering across the small area of the courtyard in front of the door. Unfortunately, Horrible knew that getting past this hulking monster of a man was probably going to be the easiest thing they had to do tonight…

"Evening, Stock." said the Doctor, as casually and as calmly as he could. Billy could feel his heart pounding heavily beneath the damp layers of lab coat. The massive man turned his small, boulderish head towards the villain, seemingly shocked by the appearance of the small Doctor.

"Oh! Doctor 'Orrible! I didn't see you there!" Stock gave Billy and his companions a toothy grin. Horrible tried to return the smile, but all he managed was a twitchy grimace.

"Yeah, me and my…friends-" The Doctor gestured somewhat carelessly at Moist and Hammer "-need to get into the ELE. I, er, left some paperwork and I-"

"Sorry Doc, Sir," Stock interrupted, frowning "but I gots ex-ex-_explicit _- orders not to let no one into the building tonight." The Doctor felt his stomach clench in horror. Oh man, they _knew_!

"Bu-but it's really important, I- I've just _got_ to get into the ELE! The paper work, I really, really need it, I-"

"No can do, Doctor 'Orrible, Sir. You could always get your papers tomorrow, couldn't you?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I guess so…" the Doctor trailed off. "Um, can I talk to you guys for a sec?" Billy wandered over to a corner of the courtyard, with Hammer and Moist following. There, he muttered something hasty to the pair. Moist paled when Horrible had finished, but nodded. The Doctor set his jaw, then turned to go back towards the city.

"Well, I guess I'll have to go back tomorrow to get my papers!" he called loudly. "See ya, Stock!"

"See ya, Doc!" the guard watched as the villain walked slowly away. What a nice man. Most of those other ELE people were really mean, but Dr Horrible, he was different. Stock turned towards the oak doors. Yup, that Dr Horrible, he was a pretty swell guy. He was-

POW!

Unfortunately, Stock never managed to summarize why Dr Horrible was such a nice guy. That was because he was thrown about ten feet into the air by one Captain Hammer, landing with a sickening crack that shook the ground. Billy side-stepped the guard, who lay unconscious, yet miraculously alive, at the foot of the door. The Doctor could barely look at the man, who, despite being alive, looked a real mess with several evidently broken bones and a thin trickle of blood running down from his mouth. He felt sickened by this act, this act that he had sanctioned. When he had taken to a life of crime, he had never wanted people to get hurt, that just wasn't his way! He had wanted to peacefully, yet forcefully take over the world and win Penny's heart.

Billy had heard that love made people do crazy things… maybe this was what was changing him so much. At least, if he told himself that, he didn't feel quite so bad.

"Earth to Doctor Horrible, do you read me?" the shadowed Hammer was waving a hand in front of the scientist's face. The Doctor jolted out of his revere.

"Yes, yes, I can hear you." said Billy, shaking himself in an attempt to rid his mind of all the awful, guilty thoughts that had wriggled their way into his already over-crowded brain. The Doctor shoved the great doors open with a sonorous creak, and peered down the darkened corridor ahead for any signs of life.

"Here, take this," he chucked a torch at Moist, who, due to the slipperiness of his hands, promptly dropped it, shattering the bulb.

"Okay…maybe we'll just have to do without the light then…" Horrible glared at his henchman, who looked down with guilt. The Doctor returned the duffle bag from which he had withdrawn the torch (the thing was soaking, due to being sat in a puddle next to him for several hours) and carefully pulled out the Paralysis Gun…which, when tilted sideways, deposited what seemed like half of the Pacific ocean on the floor.

"Oh, great…" groaned Horrible, shaking the machine so that water sprayed everywhere. "I don't think this is gonna work."

"Let me try." Captain Hammer snatched the gun out of Horrible's hands, aimed it at Moist and fired. The henchman yelped as the feeble beam struck him in the chest, but he most certainly wasn't paralyzed.

"Well that one's busted." Captain Hammer carelessly tossed the invention aside, hitting a passing alley cat on the head with it. "You got anything else in there, Horrible?" The Doctor rummaged around in his bag and took out a small ray that could be mounted on his arm; the By-beam Blaster. He didn't use it much, mainly because it happened to be _very_ temperamental. And 'temperamental' in this case meant that the thing tended to either randomly and continuously fire rounds of laser beams, or not work at all.

"This one seems sort of dry." He fired the ray at the door, the little gun making a satisfying little 'pew!' on contact. The three men literally had to press their faces right up against the wood to make out the tiny, cigarette-burn of a hole that the thing had made.

"Looks like only one of the beams is working…" muttered Moist, running a finger over the miniscule mark in the wood.

"Well, it's better than nothing." Horrible frowned at the invention strapped to his arm.

"Don't you have anything else at all?" The Doctor peered inside the duffle bag once more and shook it.

"Er, some smoke grenades-"

"Ooh! I'll take those!" Hammer stuffed his pocket with the slightly damp grenades.

"- a couple of used Taser Bugs, some spares for the Freeze Ray, AA batteries… oh, I've got a net launcher!" he pulled out the weapon, and examined it carefully.

"Crap, there's a hole in the net…"

"Why didn't you bring the Freeze Ray?" queried Moist.

"I didn't fancy having the space-time continuum collapse around us, to be honest. Destroying the universe might make it a little hard for me to bring Penny back. And for you to go on another date with Switch, for that matter." Moist's ears reddened spectacularly at the Doctor's last remark, but Billy didn't notice, having dived into his bag again.

"Oh, there's a pack of wine gums in here… and my toothbrush! I had wondered where that had got to… but no more weapons." Horrible's shoulders sagged, a feeling of foreboding creeping up on him. So, they were going to assault the ELE with a malfunctioning mini-gun, a broken net launcher and a handful of smoke grenades? He could see this heist going _swimmingly_… especially since the ELE's current favorite form of punishment was dropping people into a shark-infested pool.

"Should we come back another day?" The Doctor shook his head vigorously at Moist's suggestion.

"No, no! I mean, this is the only chance we've got; they will increase security tenfold by tomorrow, I promise you. We must do it tonight!" Horrible turned on foot and began to walk quickly up the corridor, keeping an eye out for any traps. After a few moments, he heard Hammer's and Moist's hurried footsteps as they raced to catch up with him. He didn't want to say, but the _real_ reason that he wanted to break into the ELE tonight was because he didn't think he could stand another day without Penny…

* * *

"Holy cow, my sleeve's on fire!"

"Stand still a sec Doc; I might be able to put it out!"

"With your sweat? That's just gross, Moist."

"No…I have a bottle of water in my bag."

"Oh…"

Horrible shut his eyes tight as his henchman doused his lab coat with water in an attempt to put out the mini-bonfire that had lit up on the fabric after the three of them had had to run past a series of flame throwers. All three men were in pretty bad shape; Hammer was sat against the wall, coughing violently, face blackened by smoke. Horrible was covered in minor burns, his hair and clothes quite badly singed. And Moist seemed to be a little drier than normal. The Doctor took his goggles off, wiping the grime and soot from the lenses. He couldn't believe how many near misses they had had; he couldn't say that he had anticipated the massive axe dropping from the ceiling, nor the maze of laser sensors that had criss-crossed the last couple of corridors. As for those massive flame throwers…well, he hoped that his eyebrows would grow back soon.

"How much further is it?" wheezed Hammer, staggering into Horrible "You realize that all this smoke is gonna affect my singing voice?" The Doctor rolled his eyes; he was a _way_ better singer than Hammer. Could the Captain hit a high F? No he could not…

"It's not that far I don't think." said Moist, squinting down the corridor. "Only just down there, a left and down a flight of stairs." Tentatively, the henchman started down the dimly lit passageway, Dr Horrible and Hammer watching on with baited breath. He got about six steps, when there was a loud 'click', like a gun being cocked.

"Okay, what was that?" whispered the man, who was perspiring even more as a result of the fear pulsing through his veins. He stood stock still, casting around for the source of the noise, his eyes dilated. The Doctor felt his heart pound in his chest as the mortified Moist slowly moved one leg forward. It hovered above the ground for over a minute, before the henchman finally worked up the guts to put it back down on the floor. Nothing happened. All three men let out a sigh of relief.

And that was when the gunfire began to rain down upon them.

Moist threw his arms over his head, diving to the floor to avoid the bullets that were whizzing past his ears. Horrible and Hammer pressed themselves against the corridor walls as the ammunition ricocheted towards them. Ahead of them, Moist scurried further up the hallway to take cover under a polished oak coffee table that was sat under a life-sized framed portrait of Bad Horse.

"Well, this isn't much fun!" yelled Hammer, his voice barely audible of the pounding of the bullets

"Really? I always found dodging machine gun ammo the best way to spend my Friday nights!" Horrible pressed the 'on' button on his By-Beam Blaster and fired it haphazardly in the direction the firing was coming from. For all the good it did, the Doctor may as well have just chucked at wet sponge at the machine gunmen.

"We're going to have to make a break for it!" Captain Hammer looked at Billy with a 'You crazy?' expression on his face.

"I don't want to end up with a face like a cheese-grater though! I got an award for all _this_." The super hero gestured at his ruggedly handsome…everything. Dr Horrible rolled his eyes. Again.

"On the count of three, we go." Hammer started to splutter a protest, but the look in the Doctor's eyes made him stop.

"Moist!" the quivering frame beneath the table turned to look at his employer.

"On three, run!" the perspiring man nodded glumly and shuffled himself towards the end of the table, clambering up so that he was sat back on his haunches.

"One!" beside him, Captain Hammer pulled up the brand new gloves that the Doctor had given him.

"Two!" Horrible hoisted his bag a little higher on his shoulder so that it wouldn't catch on anything as he ran.

"THREE!" Hammer and Horrible raced down the corridor, heads bowed so as to avoid being shot dead. They reached the table just as Moist was scrambling to his feet, and the three of them sprinted down the corridor and to the left. The stairs were directly in front of them, and the Doctor took the lead, leaping down them two or three at a time.

Moments later, Horrible slammed into the metal doors leading to the lab, and was almost instantly crushed by Hammer crashing into the back of him.

"Wha-? Why didn't they open?" came the Doctor's muffled voice, which was thick with panic. Hammer stepped back, allowing Billy to breathe again.

"They should open automatically, I don't understand!" Horrible looked everywhere around the metal frames, but he couldn't see a key pad or a scanner, nor did he ever recall seeing one. Then, all of a sudden, a robotic voice sounded from above them.

"Automatic access to this room is currently offline. Please state your name and purpose to gain access to this room." The Doctor looked at Moist and Hammer, confused. Shrugging, he replied to the disembodied voice.

"Er, Dr Horrible, research purposes?" A loud bleep echoed through the little hallway, almost taking out all the men's ear drums in the process.

"Access denied. System does not recognize the user. Please try again, stating name and purpose clearly."

"Doesn't look like it's gonna let us through, Doc." said Moist, with a hint of relief in his tone. "I guess we should just head back and-"

"No, no, no! We can't! I've got to get in there!" Billy resumed his examination of the door, looking for something- anything- that would give them an alternate way to get into the lab.

"There has to be a way, a pass card, a key under a flower pot, something-"

"Ahem." Horrible turned to look at Hammer. "Allow me."

The Captain strode up to the steel doors, and raised a gloved fist. He rubbed his knuckles tenderly, cracking them to ready them for impact.

"Stop! Don't do-"too late. Hammer's fist collided with the metal. There was a sickening 'crunch', and Captain Hammer was howling in pain, clutching his hand. Even with his strength, he had barely left a dint.

"That…" Horrible grimaced as the hero shuffled away, whimpering.

"Um," mumbled Moist, tapping his roomie on the shoulder, "If you're really that serious...I might be able to get us in."

"As lubricated and as skinny as you are, I don't think even you could slide under that door." sighed Horrible dejectedly.

"No, I was going to try…something else…" The Doctor watched skeptically as Moist cleared his throat and said:

"Professor Normal; research purposes."

However, when Moist spoke, it wasn't in his normal, slightly nasal voice; somehow, unbeknownst to the now stunned scientist next to him, the henchman perfectly replicated the Professor's tone. If the Doctor was blind, he wouldn't have been able to tell that the slow drawl had come from Moist.

"Welcome, Professor Normal. Please enter the laboratory." The pair of metal doors slid open to reveal the lab, which was completely pitch black.

"How…how the hell did you do that?" Horrible looked at his henchman with awe, who merely shrugged.

"I wanted to be an impersonator when I was a kid. I got good at it."

The three men quickly stepped across the threshold, just in case the doors decided to shut themselves. They were only stood in darkness for a moment when the glaringly white lights flicked on. Before them was the Resurrect-Ohm-Meter, as large and as complicated looking as it had been earlier that day. The Doctor approached slowly as though he was scared that the thing would jump up and bite him. Carefully, he edged around control panel to reach the glass case where the processor was situated.

"This must be done carefully and quickly…" muttered the scientist, pressing his face as close to the glass as his goggles would allow. He plunged a hand into his coat pocket (which would appear to be a little like Mary Poppins' handbag) and pulled out a small hammer, a pair of wire cutters and a Phillips screwdriver. Putting down the latter two items, Horrible span the hammer round in his palms, and then began to tap away at the casing.

"This should only take a couple of minutes."

* * *

An hour later, Horrible was still tapping at the glass.

"I'll only be another ten minutes, promise!"

"You said that twenty minutes ago."

Sat up against the generator, a few yards from Dr Horrible and Moist, was Captain Hammer. He was twiddling his thumbs impatiently, rolling his eyes as the Doctor resumed tentatively tapping at glass case. Jeez, couldn't this guy hurry up? Didn't he know what time it was? Being up so late always put Hammer in a bad mood, and it was not improved by the fact that, every moment Horrible spent trying to break into that case was a moment that the Captain was without his strength permanently restored. Dr Horrible had _promised_ that, when they finished the final task, Hammer would be a special person again, would have his strength back and be free to crime-fight once again. But if Dr Horrible carried on at this rate, Hammer wouldn't be a hero again until he was as wrinkly as an old elephant that had spent a life-time in an elephant-sized bath. And that did not make Captain Hammer a happy camper.

So he decided that he was going to 'help' Horrible out a bit.

And that 'help' happened to involve the large hammer in the fire-aid case at the back of the room smashing through the glass that covered the processor.

"What the HELL are you doing?" shrieked Dr Horrible, clutching the side of his face that was bleeding profusely as a result of having a large shard of glass fly off and slice him on the cheek. Next to him, Moist was moaning in pain, a gigantic sliver of the protective case lodged in his palm. Both men's arms were also riddled with minor cuts.

"Great, the blood's stained my shirt…"

"Well, the blood's stained half my face thanks to that idiot!"

"I was _trying_ to help!"

"Yeah, well next time, don't!" Horrible huffed with fury. Sometimes...

"So, now we just pull this thingamajig out, right?" Hammer leant over the shattered remnants of the casing. The weird looking thing inside of it was flashing all little bright colours, and was making a low hum, a little bit like a mosquito.

"No, don't we don't 'just pull it out'. We've got to remove it carefully; if you pull it out, you'll damage it."

"Well you'd better do that."

"I can't." said Horrible through gritted teeth. "You've turned my hands into two slabs of freshly ground mince!" Sure enough, the old white gloves that the Doctor was wearing were splattered with blood; unfortunately, they weren't as protective as the black ones that Hammer had commandeered from him.

"You're gonna have to do it; just listen to what I say _very_ carefully and _don__'__t _muck it up…"

Hammer dropped to his knees and examined the processor carefully. It looked like nothing more than a big, rainbow spaghetti ball of wires to him. How on Earth did Horrible expect him to disconnect it from the main machine?

"Okay…" said Horrible, kneeling next to Captain Hammer. The man winced as his cut hands lightly touched the floor.

"You're gonna want to cut that thick green and yellow wire first, using the wire cutters." Hammer did as the Doctor said, his dustbin-lid-sized hands making the job very tricky indeed. But, eventually, he managed to break through the wire.

"Now, unscrew those screws with that Phillips."

"Mmmhmm. What next?"

"The blue wire. No, not that one, that's purple. The light blue one next to one that looks like a candy cane." The wire snapped with a little 'pang'.

"Good. You need to winkle that red wire out now. Don't cut it." Horrible nodded as the wire fell to the floor. "Right, now pull out the purple one. You'll just have to yank it."

"That alright, yeah?"

"That's fine. Now cut through those three brown ones… No! Stop! You've got the little orange one in there with them!" The Doctor carefully shifted the small strand out of the way. Moist watched the pair from a ways back, looking rather disturbed. They were being…civil to each other? Clearly, he had slipped into some alternative reality; this just did not happen! They were actually working together, _together_, and _not_ giving each other death glares?

He needed to sit down for a minute…

"Just yellow and blue now…yep, that's good… and the orange…that little grey one over there…that's it! You've done it!" The wires of the processor now dangled, unattached from the rest of the machine. Horrible was grinning happily, the shock that it'd gone so well quite evident on his face.

"Now we just take it out right?" carefully, Captain Hammer placed his two hands on either side of the cylindrical component and gently, gently pulled it out of its place and tossed it to Moist.

And that was when the alarm went off.

"No, it was going so well!" cried Horrible, spinning round on the spot. The room glowed red with the flashing burglar alarms. A crash alerted the men to the fact that the exit was barred by a set of thick steel gates which had been activated by the removal of the processor. It appeared that Moist, Horrible and Hammer were well and truly trapped.

"We're well and truly trapped!" shouted Hammer, looking at the windowless walls with distain. "There's no way out! No way out!" Dr Horrible was, at that moment in time, rattling the bars of the gate in the hope that a man with all the muscles of a deflated balloon could possibly break through several inches of solid metal. Of course his efforts were in vain.

"Great, so now what?" snarled Horrible, aiming a kick at the gate which did nothing more than add a set of sore toes to his problems. "Bad Horse and merry men will be here soon, and I don't know about you guys, but _I_ don't want Snake Bite wearing my intestines as an accessory!" As the Doctor clutched his head in anguish, Hammer attempted to break the bars. Under his superior strength, they bent a little, but still remained intact.

"We were so close, _so __close_…"

"Er, Doc…?"

"What now Moist? Can't you see that we're a little bit _trapped_?"

"Well, you see…I was just gonna suggest we try the fire escape." The Doctor's head snapped up instantly.

"The what?"

"The fire escape. I remember you saying, _ages _ago that fire escapes-"

"-can't legally be blocked of in case of emergency! It's American law! Fake Thomas Jefferson would've made sure they adhered to it!" Dr Horrible looked like he wanted to kiss Moist. And Fake Thomas Jefferson. And the people who make up laws. Three acts that he would never ever _ever _have considered doing before that particular moment.

Hammer quickly ditched his attempt at breaking through the bars of the gate and hurried to join the Doctor and Moist, who were just reaching the fire escape door. Billy held his breath as he tugged the handle downward. Success! The door swung open, and the bitter night air gushed forward to meet them. The rain was nothing more than a drizzle now, but it still clung to the Doctor's hair when he stepped out of the ELE.

"Now, if I'd realized we could've gotten in this way…"

"You would still have eyebrows?" Horrible glared at the Captain for reminding him about that.

"You've got the processor, right?" Moist nodded, patting the component that was resting underneath his arm.

Horrible took a couple of steps down the metal staircase, loving the feel of the cold rain trickling down his face. This, _this_ meant that he was literally only an hour or so away from seeing Penny again! He felt like his heart was going burst out of his chest, he felt on top of the world, and nothing, not even the fact that Captain Hammer was stood next to him or that he would probably be kicked out of the ELE, could stop him from feeling so happy-

"Hey you! You in the red coat grinning like an idiot! Put your hands where I can see them!" confused, Horrible peered into the darkness. Yep, at the foot of the stairs. Seven figures, clad in LAPD standard issue uniform.

"Balls."

"You three get down here right now! You are under arrest for breaking and entering!" A larger cop was pointing a hand gun right at the Doctor's snozz. Which the Doctor did not appreciate one bit; he had secret loves to reanimate!

"Walk down here slowly you three! Hands up, and don't try any funny business!" rather wanting to avoid having his face blown off, Horrible complied with the man's orders. This was so typical, so typical of one of the Doctor's plans. Everything always fell apart at the final hurdle…

"What do we do…?" hissed Hammer as he followed the Doctor down the spiral stairs. Horrible didn't reply; what could they do? They had no weapons (for the Doctor had stupidly left them in the lab, though it wasn't as though they were any good anyway) and were vastly out-numbered. And all the coppers had guns trained on them, at almost point blank range. He found it hard to see a way out of this situation that didn't either involve a ride in the back of a squad car or on a trolley bound for the morgue.

"Cuff them." A squat female officer grabbed Moist roughly by the waist. The henchman yelped as she clipped the handcuffs too tight around his wrists.

"He's a slippery one." she said with a look of disgust, wiping Moist's slime from her hands.

"Don't you try anything, Dr Horrible…" said a mustached police man, approaching Billy with his very own set of shiny restraints. Horrible sighed, putting his hands behind his back. Well, at least he'd tried…

But, out of the corner of his eyes, he saw Captain Hammer fiddling with something in his pockets. The cops were yet to cuff him; they were more intent on making sure that the infamous super-villain was fully restrained. Nobody was really paying any attention to the forgotten hero…

There was a little 'plink' as a metal pin fell to the floor. All eyes followed as the grenade arched through the air. The moment the projectile hit the floor, the area was engulfed in a cloud of smoke. Everyone started coughing and spluttering, stumbling around in an attempt to reach clean air. Horrible felt a pair of hands grab him and yank him forwards quickly. The smoke began to thin after a few yards, and by the time Horrible had reached the end of the ELE drive, he could see that his savior was none other than Captain Hammer, who had also pulled Moist out of the throng.

"…Thanks…" said Horrible, rubbing his wrists where the police man had gripped them. Hammer looked at his arch-nemesis, clearly a little bit shocked. They regarded one another for a few moments. It was weird, but something had been changing between the two of them… like they were hating each other a little bit less…

"Um, we need to be going!" Moist was nodding his head over towards where the smoke grenade had gone off; the fog was thinning and the figures of the LAPD members were gradually coming into view.

"To the Horrible Mobile-"

"Dude, I'm cuffed."

"Well, then Captain Hammer can drive-"

"He is NOT driving my car! He's not insured to start!" Dr Horrible glared his most angry 'I'm-going-to-kill-you-in-the-dead-of-night glare.

"Fine," sighed Moist "but if he so much as scratches it, you're paying my MOT for the next three years!"

* * *

The polo squealed round the corner at a rate of knots, smoke pouring from the wheels and hood as it screeched to a stop in the parking lot. Sirens wailed in distance, and the LA night was alight with red and blue flashes. Horrible and Moist breathed heavily in the back, gripping to the sides of their seats in case the lunatic decided to start up again. As soon as Hammer killed the engine, Moist leapt from the car and was violently sick behind a rhododendron.

"Never. Again." said Moist shakily, leaning against the side of his car for support. "D'you hear me? You are NEVER driving again!" The man brandished his fist at Hammer, the broken chains of the handcuffs chinking together; they had broken after the Captain had made a particularly violent turn the wrong way round a roundabout…

Dr Horrible patted Moist sympathetically on the shoulder, which made him turn an even deeper shade of green. Another siren blared nearby, getting gradually closer…

"We need to get this upstairs and in the Resurrect-Ohm-Meter pronto! I've got a feeling that we'll be getting a knock on our door pretty soon, and I don't think it'll be UBS with one of my parcels…" with that, the Doctor raced into his apartment building, taking the steps two at a time. Outside, he could still hear the police cars wailing away. His heart was pounding in his chest. This was it- after months of planning and careful execution, everything- _everything __he __ever-_ weighed on the next few minutes.

Out of breath, Billy reached the door of their apartment, fumbling with his keys in his anxiety. Finally the lock clicked. Horrible stumbled into the apartment with Moist and Hammer following close behind. The Doctor hastened to shut the door behind them.

"Lock and barricade the door." Horrible hurried over towards the Resurrect-Ohm-Meter, opening up the machine's mainframe in order to install the processor. In the glass case, Penny still floated, her face obscured by her flaming red hair…

"Okay, so this wire connects to here… that plugs in there-" Hammer dropped the Doctor's oversized armchair in front of the door with a tremendous bang, knocking a porcelain cat onto the floor. He winced as he did each task, his hands still searing in pain from the glass, but there was no other option.

"- blue wire connects to the brown wire, which fits in there…oh, crap, need to attach those two together… "Horrible carefully used his soldering iron to fix the wires together. Meanwhile, as Moist was attempting to shove the coffee table up against the door, he heard the faint yet distinctive sound of booted feet running up the staircase.

"They're coming Doc!" cried the henchman, running a hand through his damp mop anxiously.

"I'm almost…done!" Horrible sighed, leaning away from the machine and pulling his goggles off of his eyes. They clattered the floor.

"Moist," panted the Doctor, getting to his feet "start power up!"

"But surely you need to check that the thing is connected up properly and-"

"LAPD OPEN UP!" the muffled yell was followed by pounding on the apartment door.

"There isn't enough time! Moist, begin the start-up sequence, make sure the data is ready for streaming. Hammer, carry on putting stuff in front of the door!" Both men grunted a 'yes' as the Doctor raced round the back of the machine and pulled a handle that was connected to the plug adaptors. Instantaneously, all the lights in the house went out as the energy all surged towards the Resurrect-Ohm-Meter. The only sources of light now were from the monitor, the buttons and the green glow from the tank.

"Moist, is machine working at 70%-"

"I SAID OPEN UP!"

"Yeah!" yelled Moist. "What do you want me to do?"

"Press the blue and then the yellow button that are to the left of that massive lever! After that, flick the three black switches on the dash! Then a message will pop up saying 'Commence Memory Stream?'. Click 'Proceed'!" Moist followed the Doctor's instructions and the machine whirred even louder, wires aglow with the power. Horrible raced over to Moist's side.

"Okay, what's this?" Moist pointed at the typing box that had cropped up on screen.

"It's the code for the processor. It tells it how to stream the data." Horrible bit his lip as his head span between the monitor and the body of the machine.

"I need to get over there and regulate controls for radiation, so I'm going to have to yell the code to you!" The Doctor lunged for the mainframe just as a pipe began to emit steam. He quickly spun a wheel to release pressure whilst yelling "It starts 978EG1TRF0A2!"

Moist tapped furiously on the keyboard, entering the Doctor's strings of digits as Horrible himself ran around like a headless chicken trying to prevent the Resurrect-Ohm-Meter from blowing up.

"OPK98WEX7!"

"Got it!"

"Now put 2XJ599IKL!" the henchman typed in the code as fast as he could.

"Okay, NPPQ230-"

"Dr Horrible! I think they're ramming the door!" Captain Hammer was pushing as hard as he could against the barricade, but even in the semi darkness, Horrible could see him jolting every now and then. From behind all the stuff, he could also hear massive bangs as something very heavy was battered against the door…

Horrible cursed under his breath. His eyes darted between the machine and Hammer.

"Horrible!" the stuff against the door was tumbling to the floor now. "Horrible, my strength is gone! Our bargain? I've done everything you asked; now give me back my strength!" There was a lengthy silence in the room, interrupted only by the hum of the machine and the periodic bangs of the battering ram outside.

The Doctor stood there for a moment, torn. He bit his lip. Closed his eyes. Tried to speak, but the words got caught in his throat.

_A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do..._

"Moist." said Horrible quietly. "04477G. 812HIQJK. Inject neutralizing agents. When system is 100%, restore life force with the red button."

"HORRIBLE!" Billy looked over to Hammer, who was struggling from the force of the LAPD's blows.

"You promised!" The Doctor regarded the Captain for a short while, and took a deep breath.

"Do you remember…" started Horrible, his voice oddly quiet and lacking in venom. He shut his eyes for another moment.

_Don't plan the plan if you can't follow through…_

"Do you remember when you told me that-that you would take Penny because, as I recall you saying 'I get what you want'?" the old anger had seeped back into his voice, but even then it was somewhat forced. Hammer stared at Billy, stunned.

"Well now, now you're going to get what you deserve. Moist, restore life force." The henchman punched the red button and the machine groaned and whirred louder than ever. Dr Horrible turned to watch the fizzling tank when suddenly the man felt a great deal of pain as a large blow was inflicted to his temple. Captain Hammer, in his rage, had attacked the Doctor. Despite his lack of strength, Hammer could still hit bloody hard and Horrible found himself on the floor, stars dancing in front of his eyes. He felt Hammer pounding his head with punches, could hear the Resurrect-Ohm-Meter whizzing to a stop just before it restored Penny. Somehow, Horrible managed to throw Hammer off of him as the machine built to its crescendo of noise as the energy of life powered through its circuits.

A blinding light filled the apartment. A tremendous crash and a loud groan told Dr Horrible that Hammer had stumbled backwards and fallen on something, probably the Doctor's very valuable Star Wars memorabilia. Several more load crashes and more moaning followed. As the light dimmed, Horrible could see a figure thrashing around inside the tank, and hear the tapping of a fist on glass.

"Penny!" Billy wriggled out of his lab coat, tossing it aside as he rushed to the foot of the ladder. He ascended with haste, threw open the lid of the tank and without even thinking about it dove in. The liquid was freezing, making the Doctor gasp and release his supply of oxygen. Right next to him was Penny, her hair wrapped around her face as she tried desperately to free herself of the wires that were fixed to her skin. Horrible grabbed her arm, and she spun around in shock. Her brown gaze fixed on him, her expression confused. He froze for a moment, lost, before remembering that they were both drowning. The Doctor gestured at her wires, and then proceeded to unattach the woman from the Resurrect-Ohm-Meter.

There were wires everywhere, hindering the Doctor's movements, forcing him to work slowly to make sure none were tangled around Penny. He could feel her skin against his fingers, could feel its warmth slowly leaving every moment he spent trying to remove all the electro pads. The Doctor started to panic after about a minute and a half; his mind was becoming foggy, and he was having trouble focusing. His lungs burned, desperate for air. All the while, he could see Penny gradually ceasing to move, her eyes flickering shut. No, no! He hadn't come this far to have her drown in the damn tank! With a few final, harsh tugs, he felt her float free from her wires. She hung like a dummy in the fluid, hair spiraling like flames above her head as she slowly began to sink. Billy grabbed Penny around the waist and, with as much power as he could muster, kicked his way to the top of the tank

The Doctor burst through the surface of the water, gulping greedily at the air. He dragged himself and the redhead out of the tank. He tried to stand, holding on to Penny, but he was too weak and the pair of them toppled down the ladder. Luckily, an old mattress lay at the foot of the thing, so they escaped serious injury. The scientist lay winded for a moment before scrambling over to Penny. A sense of dread bubbled within him as he caught sight of the paleness of her skin.

"Penny? Penny, can you hear me?" he propped her up and shook her. _Oh, __man,__oh __man,__oh __man!__Please __let __her __not __be __dead,__please __let __her __not __be-_

Penny shuddered in his arms, gasped, coughing violently. Her eyes flew open, looking very dazed. And very, _very_ confused.

"B-B-Billy?"

A pained yelp that sounded a lot like Moist sounded through the room, which made Horrible look up. The yelp was followed by a colossal crash as the door finally gave way and half of the LAPD poured into the room.


	12. Chapter 12

**Oh man, I am so sorry for the HUGE delay in uploading it! It's been nearly finished for ages, but I've been so busy with exams (and crippled by writers block) that I've only just finished it. Many apologise for that. I hope not to leave such huge updating gaps in the future. I'll try to push a little of the blame on BBC's Sherlock. That show has had me crippled for weeks. If you've not seen it, I'd highly recommend it: it is absolutely flipping amazing!  
Anyways, thanks to everyone who has reviewed or faved my story. And I tip my hat to gcpd285 who clearly knows where their towel is. =P**

**So, without further ado: chapter 12. I really hope it isn't a big disappointment after waiting for so long. I'm not a huge fan of this chapter (because I suck at the romancy aspect of writing), but oh well.**

Chapter 12

"NOBODY MOVE! NOBODY MOVE!" feet thudded all around as at least thirty men and women shoved their way into the minuscule sitting area. Their flashlights darted all over the shop, occasionally blinding Dr Horrible and Penny, who were huddled at the foot of the Resurrect-Ohm-Meter. As the LAPD checked that the apartment was safe, Billy tried to surreptitiously hide his discarded lab coat by shoving it beneath the mattress: well, it was somewhat incriminating evidence. Eventually, after making quite sure that none of the inhabitants had rigged the place to turn into a ball of gaseous vapour anytime soon, the police turned their attention to the four people in the house.

"What the hell is going on here?" said a very red-faced cop, puffing from exhaustion. "The door to this apartment was barricaded. We are looking for a number of fugitives. Doesn't stand you in very good stead, does it? The fact that we are looking for criminals in this building, and you just _happen_ to have half your living room furniture in front of your door..." The Doctor gulped, trying to blend into the beige wall behind him. Unfortunately, that didn't seem to work too well.

"You!" the man pointed at Billy, who shrunk back a little, holding Penny protectively. "You look horribly familiar, buddy…"

The cop frowned at Horrible, his moustache quivering like a great hairy caterpillar on his lip. He squinted, cocking his head back and forth as he tried to figure out who the scrawny man before him was. Then-

"Sergeant! Over there! Underneath a…spaceship?" the man turned to look at what his officer was talking about. The 'what' in question happened to be a rather disgruntled Captain Hammer, who trying to push a scale model of a Death Star off of his chest.

"We'll deal with him in a minute, DeLauny. Right now, we are interrogating this-"

"But _Sir_! That man is the man who did _this_!" the officer, a short and rather angry looking woman, gestured at her left arm which was in a pot.

"Shit…"

Captain Hammer scrambled backwards as all attention turned to him. His lower body was still pinned under the stupid spaceship thingy of Dr Horrible's and his foot was currently stuck in the helmet of a Stormtrooper. The task wasn't made any easier by the fact that he was lacking his superhuman strength. The hero's eyes darted around as the LAPD bore down on him.

"Are you sure that's the guy DeLauny?"

"Positive! He's even wearing the same shirt!"

"Ew. That's gross." The sergeant turned to his men. "Well? What are you waiting for? Cuff him!"

"Hey! Hey! Mind the hair!" Hammer tried to fend them off, but was quickly overpowered, his arms forced behind his back. The sergeant approached Hammer, a look of disgust slapped on his face.

"What's your name, sonny?"

"Captain Hammer."

"Oho!" the guy's facial fur danced excitedly on his face. "Men! Guns trained on this guy!" A ripple of unease spread through the group as they raised their weapons.

"Did you know that you are wanted, not only for the GBH inflicted upon my officer and theft of her communication device, but also for the damage of a certain Elementia's property, _grave robbery,_ and the _murder_ of a Mister Cedric O'Malley, a guard at the aforementioned Elementia's home? Not to mention, you are wanted in connection of the theft of a highly reactive compound that was being stored in a warehouse in the city!" There was a collective gasp amongst the group, but none was louder that Penny's; her eyes widened in horror, her mouth forming a perfect little 'o' of shock.

"Eu-Eugene?"

"EUGENE?" Dr Horrible's jaw crashed to the floor and tumbled somewhere behind the Resurrect-Ohm-Meter. "That's your real name?" he looked at the Captain in disbelief, who was reddening by the second. Penny looked between Billy and Hammer, confused, before continuing.

"Did you…did you kill someone?" Captain Hammer gaped like a landed fish, stunned.

"Yeah…but I don't know how they found out!" Everyone in the room gasped again. Bar Dr Horrible; he was too busy grinning in a somewhat satisfied fashion.

"We found out," said the police sergeant, through gritted teeth "because an anonymous source recovered some CCTV tape from the wreckage of Elementia's home and sent it in. That footage depicted you and two accomplices destroying the super-hero's home, causing millions of dollars' worth of damage. And quite clearly showed you _murdering_ the aforementioned guard with some sort of…Death…Ray." At this, Horrible purposely avoided Penny's curious stares. Oh crap, he'd sort of forgotten about that…

"Accompanying this evidence, were a collection of photographs of you digging up the grave of the young woman whose body was stolen around Halloween…" the man smiled triumphantly, folding his arms with contentment. "Captain Eugene Hammer, you will be going away for a _long _time. Do you wish to cooperate and just admit that you stole the radioactive compound? There were plenty of witnesses, but confessing would save a lot of time. Plus, it could knock your two life sentences down to just one and a half." Hammer's eyes widened with horror. Well, _this _was not good at all. Not good. He was going down…

Well you know what they say; if your ship is sinking, you may as well try to take down as many with you as you can.

"I had help!" cried the Captain, pointing directly at Horrible. "He, _he's _Dr Horrible! He made me help him! It was all his idea! He was building this Ressy thing to bring Jenny back!"

"It's Penny!" said Horrible. "And I did _not_ do any of that! He's insane; a fruit-loop!" the Doctor pulled the best _'I'm innocent, really!' _face as he could manage. The sergeant's eyes narrowed suspiciously. He looked over to the colossal machine beside him.

"What's this?" he cautiously tapped the Resurrect-Ohm-Meter, flinching as he withdrew in case it decided to bite his hand.

"It's…it's a microwave oven."

"A microwave oven?" he didn't look convinced. "It's pretty big for a microwave."

"I, er, needed to defrost a really big turkey?" Horrible waited for a few tense moments. Honestly. _A microwave?_ He had a PhD in Horribleness, was a creative _genius_, and the best he could come up with was that the great hulking metal monster taking up 90% of his living room was a device for warming up his tea?

"Are you Dr Horrible?" a very pregnant pause followed this question.

"Er, _no_. Do you see a lab coat?" The sergeant frowned. He did have a point…

"Is he Dr Horrible?" the cop pointed at Moist, who dropped the cup of coffee he had been quietly sipping.

"M-me?" Moist shook his head vigorously. "Naw. I'm just me. Just a guy. Drinking coffee. I'm not ELE material." The sergeant sighed.

"Fine; we'll sort you two out later. Guys, get this _villain_ out of here and down to the station." Two burly young men grabbed Hammer underneath the arms and frog-marched him towards the door, with the disgraced hero wriggling in protest.

Just as they reached the door, a loud knocking stopped them in their tracks. Someone was banging on the door, trying to get in. The police men paused and turned to look at their sergeant, at a loss as to what to do. The sergeant sighed; clearly someone wanted him to have as hard a day as possible…

"Open the damn door then! Or do I have to do everything myself?" the door opened very quickly after that. On the other side of said door, the cops were greeted by a very peculiar sight: three men, clad in cowboy outfits. Music began to rise within the room, and the cowboys danced towards Captain Hammer, singing:

_Bad Horse  
__Bad Horse  
__Bad Horse  
__Bad Horse  
__The ELE's been watching  
__And we're liking what you do  
__The Bad, Bad Horse, he's quite impressed  
__And wants you to join the crew!  
__So how 'bout it Captain Hammer  
__Why don't you start anew-_

"NO NO NO!" cried Hammer. "I'm _good_! I'm a good guy!" he spun around, distraught at the sceptical looks that he was being given. "No! I'm a good guy! I'm _Captain Hammer_! I've saved lives, I've pulled cats from trees, I've-"

"I don't care if you put an end the X Factor, you're down for murder, therefore you're coming with me, mister." The sergeant personally grabbed the Captain hauled Hammer out of the door.

"Sorry to interrupt your little…performance, gents."

"No problem."

"We'll just get the Boss to send him a text."

"Or a fax."

"Or possibly a musical greetings card." The Bad Horse Chorus trooped out of the apartment behind the mob of LAPD. Finally, the door swung shut with a clunk, leaving only Moist, Dr Horrible and Penny.

Penny.

The poor woman was still sat on the mattress next to Billy, utterly bamboozled as to what…where…how…?

The red-head slowly got to her feet, Billy watching her every move very carefully. She put her palm to her head as her confused brain pounded angrily. She felt like she was recovering from a severe bout of flu; every muscle ached, and her memories seemed fuzzy. What day was it? She struggled to remember…

Penny scrunched up her eyes, trying to think things through. What did she last remember? The opening of the homeless shelter. Yes… Captain Hammer had been there…to open it? Yes, yes; it was dedicated to him; he managed to procure the building. But then why was she here? 'Here' being what she presumed was Billy's home. Penny cast around the small apartment, her eyes lingering on the gargantuan hulk of metal before her. What was that for? She laid a hand on the still-warm machine. She peered into the tank, and then looked down at her soaking clothes.

"Are you okay, Penny?" the woman turned around to face Billy, his face full of concern. Oddly, when she saw him, another name cropped into her head: Dr Horrible, the person the sergeant had accused him of being. A white lab coat just peeking out from under the mattress drew her attention. Her memory flashed back- Billy, striding through the rows of chairs, wielding a gun…singing…

It made no sense. Perhaps it was a dream?

"Billy?" her voice cracked- it was sore, as though she hadn't spoken in a long time.

"Yes?" he hurried towards her and gripped her hands. His brilliant blue eyes pierced hers. Eyes that she knew so well. Eyes she could trust.

"What happened?"

Billy gulped. He looked over to the man stood in the corner of the room, the man hidden in the shadow of the machine.

"You gotta tell her, Doc." The blonde nodded. Took a deep breath.

And then he told her everything.

* * *

The Doctor waited.

And waited.

Penny was sat silently on the couch in front of him. Her hands rested limply in his as she stared past him, seeing nothing in her state of complete shock. Billy could feel his heart pounding in his chest, partly because of the spark of something electric passing between their touching hands. But mostly because he was scared: scared that she would reject him. Scared that she would hate him. She hadn't spoken for the best part of ten minutes- and he still hadn't told her that he was in love with her.

Maybe he should leave that till another day?

Before him, Penny began to come back to life. She blinked a couple of times, coming out of her reverie. Cast, weary eyed, around the room, eyes landing for a moment for the man she now knew as Moist, who was perched on the counter in the kitchen. Finally, her gaze landed on the man in front of her.

"I-I'm dead?"

"Not any more. I-I brought you back." The red-head shook her head in disbelief.

"I died." She said, trying to get her head around it all "And you- you built this machine to bring me back."

"That about sums it up, yes." Penny smiled meekly.

"So, that makes you some sort of super genius then?" Billy grinned.

"That about sums it up, yes."

"This is so much to take in…" the woman sighed, twisting a strand of flaming hair around her finger. "I don't remember dying. Or being dead; I only really remember seeing you…as Dr Horrible. And then nothing. That is, until now." She paused for a moment, deep in thought.

"I still can't understand how someone as nice as you could secretly be a member of the ELE…"

"You don't seem quite as bothered by it as I thought you would be though."

"I don't agree with what you have done, and how you did it…but I understand why you did it. You were just trying to make the world a better place, like me. Except you took a different approach.

"Anyway," she continued "Doing something bad doesn't make you a bad person…" Penny trailed off, turning to gaze out of the window at the urban landscape that sprawled out beyond it. The sun was starting to rise now, and a crimson light was bathing all of LA in its warming glow. The rays reached the pair on the couch and the girl shuddered, unaccustomed to the light. It was nearly winter, yet the sun provided warmth she supposed she had not felt in almost four months.

"Hey, could I, er, use your shower? It's just, I smell like…well…something that's died." Dr Horrible smiled in the kindest, non-stalky/ creepy way he could manage whilst looking at the woman with whom he was madly in love.

"Sure. No problem. Go ahead. First door on your right." Billy watched as Penny got unsteadily to her feet and slowly walked towards the bathroom. He continued to watch until the last strand of scarlet hair was shut behind the wooden door and the sound of the water pounding the plastic tub filled the living room. Finally Horrible turned away, to find Moist standing in front of him, eating a packet of crisps.

"Well, that went well." He stated mid-mouthful. The henchman pulled a disgusted face as he swallowed the very soggy prawn cocktail chips.

"Yeah…yeah it did." Horrible frowned. "I'm kinda surprised she took it so well, actually."

"Maybe she's just really grateful."

"Maybe she's still in shock; dying and then coming back to life isn't exactly something you do every day." Moist started to reply, but was interrupted by a knock on the door.

"You order anything?" he queried. The Doctor shook his head; he rarely ordered online (hence the whole 'stealing-the-processor-from-the-ELE-'cause-they-got-one-from-ebay' scheme) and he didn't recall ringing for a Chinese. At 6:37 in the morning.

Billy made his way towards the door, cautious in case it was the LAPD again and they intended on busting it open right into his face. With care and much hesitation, Horrible eased the door open. And immediately regretted it when he saw who was standing on the other side.

"P-P-Professor Normal?"

* * *

"I-er-I wasn't expecting-this is a really bad- I'm really busy-I-"

"Quit the crap Horrible and let me inside." The Doctor stepped aside, feeling his stomach plummet about ten stories.

This. Was. NOT. Good.

Normal strode into the room and cast around the dingy place. He didn't even seem remotely surprised by the replicate Resurrect-Ohm-Meter taking up half of the floor space. Moist stood in the centre of the room looking thoroughly shocked, bag of sopping crisps forgotten in his damp palm. The Professor approached the machine and began to inspect it, examining each component with much scrutiny. Meanwhile, Billy felt his heart pounding somewhere in the region of his throat. No 'maybe's' or 'might's' this time; he was well and truly done for this time.

"Is the processor installed?" the Doctor was somewhat taken aback at the question, but hastily replied.

"Yes; next to the centre console." Normal quickly located the component and nodded with a sort of grim satisfaction. Horrible held his breath.

"Well. I'm impressed." The Doctor blinked hard. Shook his head. Surely, he'd heard wrong.

"Very impressed… you've replicated it very well, with limited materials too. And right under the noses of myself and the rest of the ELE." Billy stared at the Professor. Yeah, he really should've gone for that hearing test…

"I trust it works." queried Normal, pacing around the Resurrect-Ohm-Meter.

"What works?"

"Your replica of my machine of course." okay, Billy clearly was hearing fine. And hadn't gone insane. Unless all of this was perhaps a dream or illusion…

"So? _Does it work?_"

"Er…yes…worked fine…" he shot a look at Moist, who looked just as flabbergasted as he felt. His henchman shrugged as Billy raised an eyebrow.

"I must say, excellent construction; I didn't think you had it in you, Doctor. I half expected it to be made of masking tape and cardboard boxes."

"You knew?"

"Only when I got a call this morning saying the processor had been stolen." Normal ran a finger over the control centre, studying the linking circuit boards. "I'm utterly stunned that I didn't suss you out; you've never been particularly _discreet_. Yet…I only had my suspicions…"

"You don't seem very-"

"Mad?" The Professor chuckled. "In case you didn't realize, we work for the _ELE_. Back-stabbing and deceit come with the territory. Why, only last week did Snake Bite try to off me with some spurge laurel." He fiddled with a couple of dials on the machine, before snapping his fingers together.

"That reminds me; did you drink the coffee at the last meeting?"

"…No?"

"That's okay then." Normal approached the tank and tapped on the glass.

"So, I suppose you're the young man that Horrible here resurrected?" Moist froze as the Professor looked over at him.

"Me? No, no- I never died!" the scientist looked confused.

"But you're…wet?"

"I'm just…always like this…" an awkward silence hung about the room.

"My name's Moist." said Moist, hoping this would help clarify things a little.

"Ah…right…henchman?" Moist nodded somewhat vigorously. Specks of, er…bodily fluid…splattered Professor Normal. The mad scientist did his best not to grimace in disgust. He failed miserably.

"Nice place you've got here…" commented Normal, in an attempt to use small talk to diffuse the awkwardness that flowed it great schismatic waves between the three men.

"Not really-it leaks. And it's smaller than our last apartment. We sort of blew a hole through that one." Normal chuckled meekly at Horrible's reply. He wasn't really sure how to, well, _talk_ to people. It was something that literally everyone in the ELE had in common- very poor social skills.

"You, er, catch the game last night?"

"I was sort of…stealing your processor…"

"Ah. Of course." The Professor wrung his hands together, trying to think of something to say or a way to get back on topic.

"Is there anything else you'll be needing, Professor, or are you-?"

"Just a couple of things, then I'll be off." He replied, glad that the Doctor was as fond of the niceties as he was.

"First things first: your future at the ELE." Horrible felt his stomach jolt. What? He thought that he wasn't getting booted?

"You aren't getting kicked out for this; this act has actually boosted your reputation amongst your fellow villains. But I warn you- we don't like repeat performances. The same old joke gets boring, right? From now on, we expect you to carry out any of your plots _with_ us, not against us. You are allowed to freelance, of course, but no more of this, right?" Dr Horrible nodded- he had what he wanted, there would be no need for him to betray the ELE again.

"Second of all: this machine. I expect it dismantled. I don't want to see you using it again. No more resurrecting from you. Else you'll steal all my lime light. And I don't like that.

"And finally, I want my processor back. I want it dropping off at my lab by six tomorrow evening. And I expect to see you at work Monday 7am, prompt."

"I'll make sure to do that, Professor." said Billy, very relieved that Normal hadn't ripped his head off with that large metal hand of his. He had got of _incredibly _lightly. Maybe karma was on his side for once; after years of a pretty crap life, maybe, just maybe, things were starting to pick up for him.

Judging that this was probably the opportune moment to take his leave, Normal headed towards the door. He felt this had gone fairly well and a small (to emphasise, _small_) part of him was beginning to like Dr Horrible a little bit more. Just a bit, mind. He was still a blundering idiot, and this tiny act that made him slightly less detestable was probably going to be over-shadowed by some moronic plot which would make the ELE look like a joke, but nevertheless, the Professor found himself able to look at Horrible without wanting to bludgeon him to death with a raw chicken.

The Professor had just made his way to the door when a figure caught his eye. He turned, curiosity getting the better of him. A woman was peeking from behind a door down the corridor that led towards what Normal presumed were the bedrooms. She was about as ginger as a Weasley, with freckles to match, and was clutching the door in a vice-like grip.

"Horrible…there's someone at the door for you." He nodded over towards Penny, who froze, terrified of the strange man with the large metal hand.

"Penny are you okay?" The Doctor's tone was concerned as he started towards the red-head. That was when it clicked for the Professor.

Well, that made sense…

"Yes, yes, I'm fine Billy. I just- heard voices. So I was wondering…" trailed off the girl. She watched Normal fearfully as his steely gaze appraised her. He smiled as nicely as he could at her.

"_A soul ensnared; for doe- like eyes do captivate  
__The heart of man._"

Billy looked at Professor Normal in surprise. Did he just…?

"Oh come _on_!" cried the scientist, sounding very miffed. "Just because I'm an evil mad scientist doesn't mean that I don't have a heart! Is it now illegal to quote poetry?" he grumbled to himself in annoyance as he pulled open the door.

"The processor, Horrible; my desk, tomorrow! If it's not there, I promise that your head will experience a sudden, unpleasant separation from your body!" for 975th time that day, the great wooden barrier to the world slammed shut. Horrible breathed a sigh of relief.

"Um, Billy? Who the hell was he?"

"Er, just Professor Normal; a 'work' college."

"He had a metal hand!"

"Yeah; if he comes around again, try not to stare at it or bring it up. He's still very touchy about the subject." Penny chuckled at the Doctor for a moment, before lapsing into a thoughtful silence. Twiddled with her damp hair. Fiddled with her still-sopping attire.

"We should…get you some new clothes." said Billy in a quiet voice. "I'm afraid I don't have any, seeing as though I'm not a woman. Although maybe Moist-"

"I DON'T WEAR WOMEN'S CLOTHING!" both Penny and the Doctor lapsed into fits of giggles, with the odd snort leaping out now and then.

"Okay, maybe not then. But, seriously, we can go down to Wal-Mart or wherever, get you some clothes, shoes, etcetera. And food. Food would probably be a good idea. I think all we have is a very mouldy brie-"

"Billy?"

"Hmm?"

"This…this is all real, right? I mean, this isn't all a dream and I'm gonna wake up or I'm not going wake up because I'm dead and this is all just some sort-"

"Penny, Penny!" Horrible grabbed a hold of the reeling woman's hands. "Calm down! This is real, it's all real! Your real, I'm real, this is all very much real. Except for the now-headless Stormtrooper; he's a replica." Tentatively, Billy drew Penny into a hug. Her wet hair tickled his nose, and smelled strongly of his strawberry-scented shampoo. At that very moment in time, Horrible felt that is someone had cared to attach the pair to a voltmeter, the reading would be off the scale; the electricity buzzed through his arms, all down his back and stunned his brain so much that it actually ceased its frantic whirring through a multitude of equations and chemical formulas. He felt so _alive_, like he had never lived before that moment. It was then he realized just how perfect Penny was. He had always known she was perfect: she was smart, funny, caring, beautiful, wonderful and a million other adjectives that would take him a lifetime to list. But it was at that very moment, the first moment that he had held her (not counting the time he had lifted her lifeless corpse onto the stretcher), he really knew just how perfect she was for _him_.

This was why he had brought her back from the dead. Not just because he loved her. But because he needed her. They were two parts of a jigsaw; neither fit in any other place except for with one another. She was the one for him, the only one; there was no other and there never would be another. At least, that was how the Doctor felt. They were both outcasts. Both rejected by society. They _belonged_ together. He just hoped Penny felt the same way. He wanted to tell her he loved her, right then and there. But he was still scared. He was scared she'd reject him, or that she'd leave. And scared that she might be still in love with Captain Hammer.

"If this is real…why did you do it?" murmured Penny, her head buried into the Doctor's shoulder.

"Do what?"

"Bring me back." Horrible bit his lip. This put him in a bit of a pickle. He desperately, _desperately_ wanted to tell her how he felt. But still with the whole scared thing. He didn't want to freak her out, or have her rip his still-beating heart out of his chest and rend it apart with an outright rejection.

"Because…that's what friends do. Reanimate one another when they get killed by flying debris." Penny drew away from him and regarded him carefully. Billy shifted uncomfortably; he wasn't sure she'd bought his (really crap) excuse.

"Well, thank you Billy." Penny smiled shyly at him. "It was…really-"

"Don't mention it." said the reddening Doctor. He looked down at his T-shirt to avoid her eyes, and noticed a large damp patch on his chest.

"Aww, jeez Penny, I'm soaking!" cried Horrible.  
"Sorry Billy; you don't have a hair-dryer!"

"Well…I did. It's sort of part of the Resurrect-Ohm-Meter…" he nodded at the metal monster behind him. Penny looked at it curiously, opened her mouth and then shut it again. She figured that it was probably best not to ask why his scientific construct required a hair-dryer.

"Come on; we best get you some form of clothing. I don't want you to get hypothermia or something."

"Is that even possible?"

"Um… I think so." Billy grabbed one of his many boring grey hoodies from a cardboard box labelled 'Dr H's stuff' and yanked it on over his head.

"Hey Moist?" the henchman appeared quickly, peering at the Doctor from around his bedroom door.

"We're going shopping. Wanna come with?" Moist looked a little startled at the invitation. Of late, the Doctor had taken to leaving him out of his little ventures. He hadn't complained, (because normally it involved some form of physical activity, which Moist was...less than inclined to do) but he had missed the company of his good friend. Best friend. Only friend.

"'Kay. Cool. Yeah, I'll come."

* * *

A number of long, shopping-filled hours later, the two men and the re-animated love interest collapsed onto the low leather chairs that furnished the cramped coffee shop that they had stumbled into. Each was carrying a mountain of purchase from a number of America's best known labels: Wal Mart, The Gap, Abercromie and Fitch and Mr. Schmee's Slightly Shady No-Questions-Asked Acid Suppliers. Billy sighed as relieved his feet of their load, placing the bags carefully beside him (especially the Mr. Schmee's one: If broken, the contents of the litre bottles would probably kill everyone in a 200 yard radius). The Doctor scanned the darkened and cosy room, taking in the strong scent of lattes and cappuccinos. For the first time in…what seemed like forever, he could appreciate the sights and the smells. Everything seemed so perfect! He had never thought shopping could actually be fun. He had found himself laughing at Moist's jokes, smiling as Penny took in the world around her after her long period of being dead. As they had walked through LA's shopping district, he couldn't help but notice the glint of her hair in the sunlight. Against the background of grey tower blocks, she seemed so bright and colourful: a little sun walking on the sidewalk beside him. She stood out against the streets of Los Angeles, a supernova in the cosmos. It was odd; it was almost as if she…shimmered in the sun's rays to his eyes. Even now, Penny appeared to glow in the steamy little coffee shop, her red hair a weave of gleaming copper, her pale skin more luminous than the moon. The Doctor was in the danger zone of looking like a complete gorm, staring at the woman before him.

"So, what do you guys want?" said Billy, clapping his hands together.

"An espresso for me, Doc."  
"Um, would it be okay if I had a green tea, please?" the Doctor manoeuvred his way towards the barista, trying to avoid the mass of armchairs and shin-height coffee tables which seemed intent on blocking his path. He finally reached the centre-of-coffee-making, where a young and bored-looking man stood revelling in the misery that was his ten-hour shift.

"An espresso, a green tea and a latte please." The barista gave him a funny look, eyeing up the Doctor with suspicion. Billy twitched uncomfortably; every now and then, someone who wasn't totally blind (like much of the rest of LA) recognised him without his coat and goggles.

"The coffees please?" Horrible said, his voice breaking a little, sweat beginning to form on his forehead. The youth let out a bored sigh and turned away to pour the drinks. Moments later, three steaming hot cups clanked onto the tray before Billy. Just as he was about to make his escape, the barista spoke up.

"That girl over there…" he said, nodding to where Penny and Moist sat, talking. "She with you?" Billy felt heat prickle the back of his neck.

"Yes." He replied, in a defensive, tone. "She's not a piece of meat you know: Penny is smart, she's funny, she's-"

"Who the hell is Penny?"  
"The girl you were just making eyes at!"  
"What girl?" The Doctor gave the young man an incredulous look, picked up the coffees, and returned to the table. Honestly, there were some idiots in this world.

"Tea for Penny, espresso for Moist." said Billy, setting the tray down a little harder than intended, still glaring at the moronic barista.

"You alright?" said Moist as his friend angrily gulped his scalding hot drink.

"Yeah…fine Moist." replied the Doctor, his throat now hoarse due to the fact that his tongue now resembled a well-done stake. "Just the idiot serving coffee." He set down his cup and looked over at Penny, who was looking curiously at Moist.

"What's your real name, Moist?"

"Huh?" the henchman frowned at the redhead.  
"Your real name: I assume it isn't _actually_ Moist." said Penny, stirring her tea. "Unless it is, then I'm really sorry." she added quickly.

"Moist isn't my original name- I did, once, have another name, the name I used in my previous life. But it is the name I took after my rebirth as the man I am today- the perpetually perspiring human you see before you. The old me, the me before Moist, is dead. Moist is the only name I use now." Penny looked rather confuzled by Moist's little soliloquy.  
"Just go with it. I don't even know Moist's real name."  
"'Just go with it' seems to be the rule for a lot of things to do with you two…" said Penny, smiling slightly.  
"That's because it's a hell of a lot easier. And safer." Dr Horrible made a second assault on his latte, watching over the rim as Penny mirrored his movements. He watched as she took a sip. How did she always manage to look so serene, so calm, so _beautiful,_ all the time?

Heck, she even looked beautiful now, as she spat the tea back into the cup.

"Ugh, that is vile!" Penny shuddered and put the cup back down. "That's the worst cup of tea I've ever drunk, including that weird herbal infusion stuff my Auntie Maude used to make." she cringed again, the muscles of her tiny frame clenching in utter disgust.

"Okay, shall we skip this place," said Horrible, putting his cup on the tray too "and head over to Echo Park? It's a nice day we can…I don't know, go for a walk, feed the birds…"  
"I'd like that." Horrible grinned widely at Penny. Beside him, Moist stifled a giggle: he looked like the Cheshire Cat. Or Drunk Doctor Horrible (which was something both no one and everyone would want to see simultaneously).

"Echo Park it is!" Horrible got to his feet and, ever the gentleman (without _any _ulterior motives _what _so ever) offered Penny his hand. She took it, and he felt the jolt of electricity again.

And Penny didn't let go of his hand. Even when they reached the park. It was all the Doctor could think about: she wasn't letting go. He could feel her palm, cool and soft in his own fingers as they stood, watching the last of autumn's leaves falling into the great lake. She didn't let go even as they laughed at Moist's jokes, or as the fed the geese. Not even as the sun began to slip beyond the horizon, making the lake dance in a million shades of sunlight, the glassy water reflecting the three of them. Together. The almost glistening dark-haired fellow who stood beside the red-head. Whose hand clutched the blonde man's. The blonde man whose smile was wider than the ocean and eyes were so happy, and brighter than any fading sun.

This was perfect. Everything was just so perfect.

Unfortunately, perfection never lingers…

Perfection fades.


	13. Chapter 13

**How long has it been since I updated this? I'm immensely sorry for the delay again- I'm such a moob. I really hope that you don't all hate me now for being such an unreliable updater, but it's up now, so please don't kill me! =)**

**We're nearing the end now- three or four more chapters left me thinks. I'm forever grateful to anyone who had reviewed this fic; lovely reviews really do make my day!**

**Now I'd better be off to go revise for the Biology exam I have tomorrow! I hope you guys like it! =D**

Chapter 13

Two weeks passed in a glorious, bliss-filled moment. The Doctor could not recall any moment where he had been happier. The past couple of weeks had been a whirlwind of positive emotion which Horrible was unaccustomed to, all of which was due to the presence of the young red head girl who had being lying dead in her grave only a matter of weeks ago. Christmas decorations were now beginning to crop up all over the city, and the weather was becoming distinctly wetter, the temperature dipping below double figures. But despite the colder weather, the Doctor felt so warm as he walked the quiet winter streets with Penny. Just holding hands and talking. Nothing more.

It was one of these little night time excursions that Billy was thinking about as he sat polishing Professor Normal's collection of Sonic Screwdrivers on an exceedingly damp Tuesday afternoon. Behind him, the legitimate Resurrect-Ohm-Metre hummed monotonously. In the attached tank, several bodies floated in the green fluid. Dr Horrible was trying his best to ignore the gruesome spectacle at his back.

"I want to be able to see my face in those screwdrivers, Horrible!" called Normal, who was labouring away by the resurrecting machine, typing commands in furiously.

"Yes Professor."

"I must say, when I bought them off of the guy on ebay, I had hoped they would have been in better condition…" The Professor approached Dr Horrible, frowning at the battered-looking tools.

"Who did you get them off?"

"DrScrew_10"

"Oh, I think Moist bought something off of him- a laser screwdriver I think it was."

"Did it work?"

"Well, it killed the neighbour's cat, so I suppose so. But he was trying to put some shelves up at the time…" Horrible put down the last screwdriver with a flourish.

"That's about as good as you're going to get. Can't get the rest of the marks out of it." The Professor grunted in acknowledgement.

"I suppose that will have to do. I've finished re-programming the Resurrect-Ohm-Metre- I'll show you the system changes if you're done with those." Horrible followed Normal to the machine, his head still buzzing with thoughts of Penny.

"Right, if you look here, you can see I've disabled memory relay." said Normal, pointing at the left hand monitor. "In a few months, we'll be starting to create ourselves an army of mindless zombies- who, obviously won't be needing any memories of their previous lives. You can also see, I've got multi-regeneration checked so that we can rebuild several individuals at once, speeding up the process considerably. Doesn't rebuild as accurately as with single regen., but we don't need precision- just mindless slaves. Oh, and you'll also notice that I've assigned myself as 'The Master'- a little feature that I added which will make sure our little creations recognise me as their creator and obey my orders."

"That's pretty impressive."

"Pretty impressive? Boy, this sort of engineering brilliance is what wins people Nobel Prizes!" huffed Normal.

"Sorry, Professor. How come it will take a few months to get the plan into action?"

"Need some parts. Don't worry," he said, clocking Horrible's anxious expression "I've sent a couple of henchmen to go and collect the goods. Wouldn't want to tear you away from that little pretty thing you raised from the dead, would I?"

"Her name is Penny." said Horrible in a low voice. Professor Normal saw the glint of a threat in the Doctor's bright blue eyes and wisely decided to make no retaliating comment.

"How is… Penny?"

"She's okay. Got stomach flu or something at the moment, though, but she was looking a bit better this morning." Professor Normal nodded thoughtfully.

"Try giving her some of these." The mad scientist fetched a small bottle of pills from his shelf of chemical supplies.

"_Orbifinialis Remedium_. Should help ease the symptoms." Normal tossed the bottle to the Doctor, who pocketed them. He looked at the Professor with intense curiosity. Since when did he give a damn about people? Since when did he care about the Doctor?

"Oh, stop giving me that look." Normal said in reply to Billy's bemused frown. "Do you think I don't know what it is like to fall in love?" The Professor sighed dramatically as Horrible's eyebrows shot up into his hair.

"I am a Professor with more Evil-Doing Lifetime Achievement Awards than most of those in this institution…but that does _not_ mean that I never had a life outside of the ELE! There was this one girl, in Oklahoma, a real stunner, intelligent too…but this is not the time. This is time for science. Why did you get me talking about my feelings? I don't do that…" Normal carried on mumbling himself, leaving Horrible a little baffled.

Well, at least it was nice to know that the man was actually _human._

For the remainder of the afternoon, Normal took Horrible through the changes to the Resurrect-Ohm-Metre, filling him in on the new system commands that would be required to get the machine up and re-animating dead folk. The routine sort of tasks followed: paperwork and testing a couple of the Professor's inventions, one of which was a weird little thing called a Tamigotchi- cleverly disguised as a child's electronic toy, the device's purpose was to hypnotise a generation of youths and make them waste away into nothing whilst under the pretence that they were caring for a crappy 8 bit pet which died regardless of whether they fed it or not. Tea and crumpets followed the first few hours of work, which was followed by another round of paperwork and then a tedious hour or so of cleaning up the lab and fixing any damaged machinery or inventions.

The pair didn't speak for much of the rest of the time. It was only as the Doctor was mopping up some spilt acid did Professor Normal approach and clear his throat.  
"I forgot to mention earlier: tomorrow, we've got a little task. Bad Horse's orders." Billy looked up curiously from his mop.

"Bad Horse? What's the job?" Horrible watched Normal's face. Was that a twitch? The Doctor felt something in his stomach begin to stir- anxiety was starting to bubble in his gut, adrenaline starting to surge through his veins, all number of awful tasks plaguing his mind.

"It's an…important job, if that wasn't clear by the fact that Bad Horse requested that we performed it. But first things first, I want you to know: I did argue for you. I said to his Badness that you probably…weren't the best person for the job, what with circumstances as they are. But he insisted that you accompany me and Snake Bite-"  
"Snake Bite?" Ugh. The Doctor felt his heart plummet. The creepy reptile hated him.

"Yes, Snake Bite will be part of our task force, but that isn't the issue at hand." Professor Normal shifted uncomfortably in his spot, and Billy felt the anxiety swell.  
"Our task…is a prison break in. Pretty routine stuff. Just your regular high-security cell, nothing that we can't manage with our eyes blind-folded."

"Then what's the problem?"

"Well, the problem is with the prisoner himself. A new recruit. Accepted our offer whilst in custody…" If the Doctor's heart had dropped into his stomach when he heard Snake Bite was on the team, then this time it was probably in the region of his big toe.

"No." Professor Normal nodded grimly.

"But I- but I-" stuttered Dr Horrible, leaning against a nearby counter. "I only _just_ got him locked up! This isn't fair! He's my nemesis! I- I defeated him, and you're just going to _let _him join the _ELE_?" It seemed like everything he had worked so hard for had just gone caput.

"I'm sorry, Horrible, but it was on Bad Horse's orders- he wanted Captain Hammer on the team. He has all the makings of a super villain. More so, I would think, than you." Horrible felt like he had been kicked in the stomach. It had taken him _years _to get into the ELE and defeat his arch-nemesis. And when he finally had locked up Captain Hammer, what had happened? Bad Horse had given the order to break him out _and _given him a spot in the ELE!

"There is little point protesting about it." continued Professor Normal, seeing Horrible's face redden in rage. "I had no say in this decision." The scientist frowned at his colleague.

"If it is any consolation, I am truly sorry about this."

"No, it's not really much consolation, Professor."

"I didn't think it would be. Tea?" Horrible took the china cup from Professor Normal's metal fingers, and sipped it in numb disbelief. Billy always found that tea soothed his mind. It had some kind of property that allowed him to think more clearly, formulate plans more carefully. The unfortunate thing was that, whenever he had an epiphany whilst drinking tea (which was a surprising commonly occurrence), he tended to momentarily forget that he had a roasting hot drink in his hands.

Which was exactly what happened that day in the lab.

"You're going to have to mop that up too now…" said Professor Normal, watching as the tea dripped down Dr Horrible's lab coat and onto the floor.

"THE SERUM!" cried Horrible, completely oblivious to the pool of brown liquid at his feet and the third degree burns on his face. "Captain Hammer is useless! He had no powers, and cannot ever have his powers back without my cooperation! He will be of absolutely no use to the ELE without my serum-"

"-which Bowie stole from your apartment two hours ago. He told me to tell you that Penny is feeling a little bit better. And that your cupboard has mice living in it."

Horrible's heart, which had been pumping with renewed vigour, now thudded dully in his chest. This was so horribly horrible! And the theft of the serum (and the fact that it hadn't been locked up, say, in a high security vault in the Cayman Islands) was so very _convenient_; Horrible felt as though an entire chapter of his life had been orchestrated by some bored seventeen-year-old fan fiction writer that had nothing better to do than ruin his life using very bad prose and Microsoft Word 2010.

"Well…" Horrible was completely lost for words. There appeared that there was little for him to do about this. If he didn't join the team, he'd probably get kicked out of the ELE for good, what with his track record of screwing things up and Normal's warning to him about how he would have to work with the ELE rather than against them if he quite liked his shiny new plaque on the lab door.

"You won't be expected to do much- just provide some weapons and a little of your brain power. We will be requiring a certain set of your skills- I think you know what I mean. But we don't need you to personally escort Hammer out yourself- we may be the ELE, but we're not _that_ cruel." Horrible shut his eyes, and took a deep breath.

"What time? What time…do you want me there?"

* * *

Dr Horrible slammed his front door so hard when he got home that the (original, 'borrowed') Monet picture fell right off of the wall. Now, Horrible wasn't much of the door-slamming type (mainly because such physical exertion left him drained) but after today, he felt that a few hours on an oxygen tank and a drip for dehydration wasn't really going to make his day _that_ much worse.

The scientist clenched his fists in anguish and smacked his head on the wall, perhaps in an attempt to knock himself out or dislodge the awful orders of Bad Horse. He felt…ill. Physically ill. He knew it wasn't the _worse_ thing in the world, but still. He had worked so hard to put Hammer away, to disgrace him completely. But his plan appeared to have totally backfired. Hammer was in the ELE. Hammer would be free again in just a few hours.

Free to reclaim his 'serious, long-term girlfriend'.

Speaking of serious, long-term girlfriends, Penny was currently sat on the couch, huddled in the sickie blanket and watching Billy pound his head against the wall with an expression that portrayed equal measures of shock and worry.

"Billy? Are you-okay?"

"Me?" replied Billy, still facing the wall. "Yeah. Never been better."

"I would believe that if you weren't currently trying to give yourself brain damage." He turned to see Penny smiling sympathetically at him. He felt his heart grow a little lighter, as though she had taken away some of the load of today's bad news just by _being_ there.

'_But Hammer's free. She might still love him.'_

Billy tried to ignore the nasty little voice in the back of his mind.

"How are you feeling?" he asked, skilfully topic shifting. He didn't want to bring up Hammer. You know, just in case the little voice was right.

'_What do you mean 'just in case'? You know I'm right…'_

"A little better. I've only thrown up once today." Horrible tried to smile in a kindly manage, but his internal battle meant he could only manage an involuntary twitch.

"That-that's good. I have something that might help- Normal said it's good for this flu-y sort of thing." The Doctor handed her the little bottle of pills.

"It says two a day, and they need to be dry swallowed. Apparently." Penny smiled, muttering her thanks. She took a pill, grimacing as it slid down her throat.

"Tastes like feet…" The Doctor gave her a funny look.

"And how would you know what feet taste like?" Penny chuckled.

"Oh there's a whole load of things you don't know about me…"

'_I wish I did know Penny…__'_

_'Billy, I hope you realize that you are well and truly in the FRIENDZONE.'_

_'Shut up.'_

_'You're talking to yourself, so technically you're telling yourself to shut up.'  
'SHUT UP!'_

"Billy? What's wrong?" Penny placed a concerned hand on the twitching Doctor who, once again, felt like his heart had jumped ten stories.

"Nothing, nothing…"

"Clearly it's something. You only ever twitch like this when you're nervous or stressed." Penny lifted the Doctor's chin so that she could look into his eyes. "You know you can tell me anything Billy."

'_Friendzoned.'_

"It's…the ELE. They've told me…that I've got to help bust Captain Hammer out of the LAPD jail. He's been initiated into the ELE." Penny's eyes widened in shock.

"He's my arch-nemesis, I've spent _years_ trying to get one over him, trying to get him back for all the times he's humiliated me and then they just…let him out. They take away everything I've been working for…" Horrible buried his head in his palms at the unfairness of it all.

"They're going to let him out…even after he killed that man?"

"They're the ELE- they prefer it if you kill someone. It's how they sort the wheat from the chaff…" Horrible tugged at his hair in distress, his shoulder's tensing with his anguish.

"But, you never killed anyone. And you got in." At those words, Horrible felt himself stiffen even more. Luckily, his hands were in front of his face so Penny couldn't see his dilated eyes and rather clammy face.

The whole…accidental murdering of Penny was one thing that the Doctor had chosen to omit when he had relayed the events the young woman upon her revival. He had told the story in a way that made it seem that he wasn't responsible for her killing at all- the ray had been Hammer's, it had been faulty, he hadn't done anything. Well, _technically_ he hadn't- Hammer was the one who pulled the lethal trigger- but the (Good? Bad?) Doctor wasn't really sure how Penny would take it if he had told her that he had built the machine that had ended her life in the first place.

The other reason he hadn't told her was because of the guilt. It plagued him night and day, even now that he had brought her back to life. He had built a gun that could kill another person. And that invention had killed. _He_ had been the cause of a death. He had also planned to kill Hammer with it. Everything that had happened that summer made Billy question himself as a person. He had _always_ said that he would never murder, never harm another human being. The worst part was that he couldn't help but shake the feeling that, _if _it hadn't been Penny whom he had killed, just an innocent civilian, would he have gone to the trouble? Would he have resurrected _them_?

"Billy?" Penny sounded scared, frightened now.

"No. Of course not." Billy recoiled at his lie. This would have to be addressed at a later date. If things were to…progress with him and Penny, they couldn't continue with this huge lie lying between them like a canyon of secrecy. That much he knew. But not right now. There was still Captain Hammer to deal with.

'_You know that you will always put this off. You can't bear to tell her. You can't bear to see that look on her face…'_

_'How about you have a nice big mug of shut the fuck up? I WILL tell her-I promise.'_

_'Yeah, sure, like you 'promised' you'd vac the apartment last week…'_

"You'll get through this Billy. I know you will. This will sort itself out, I know it will." Horrible turned to look at Penny, smiling so kindly at him, her brown eyes gleaming with an essence of goodness Horrible had never seen in any others. Even if she would, _could_ ever…he didn't deserve her.

"Do you remember what I told you? Everything happens. Everything."

Was-was he imagining it? Was she leaning closer? He saw her eyes flicker shut for a moment, felt his body tense. It was a dream- this wasn't happening- he didn't deserve- she would never-Hammer-this was- but nothing like this could ever- oh _God_- she is, she _is-_ Penny is going to kiss him- she's-

"_Anyone_ feel like giving me a hand with the shopping?"

Karma. This was karma's doing.

* * *

BOOM!  
"Well, that was louder than expected…" Professor Normal stowed the detonator back into his pocket. The wall of the Twin Tower's Correctional Facillity crumbled into fine grey powder. After the dust had settled (probably giving everyone in the vicinity some form of asbestosis), the four super-villains stepped across the threshold. Heading the group was Professor Normal, looking as foreboding as ever with his over-sized metal hand and the infamous jaw-goggles. Snake Bite looked equally terrifying in her fancy cobra dress and snake staff which would make any Ophidiophobe quake in fear. Dead Bowie and Dr Horrible took up the rear. Bowie snapped his fingers a number of times, putting the Correctional Officers and other workers into a trance, grinning at the shear awesomeness of his powers. The Doctor, however, seemed very preoccupied and was doing nothing more than clutch at the duffle bag containing his numerous rays.

"Spread out: if you find anyone trying to raise the alarm, disable them." Each member of the ELE headed towards different parts of the octagonal entrance hall, carefully checking all corridors for sign of human life.

"Pretty fan-ssssy for a pri-sssson…" hissed Snake Bite, sidling up to Dr Horrible and looking around the area with an impressed smile. "Beats the piece of crap you call a hous-ssse, Horrible." The Doctor gave a non-committal grunt at the snake-woman's jibe.

"No comeback, Horrible?" Snake Bite was clearly put out.

"I don't like you when you have a girlfriend…" At this, the Doctor felt the nervous twitch in his eye make its return. Fortunately, Snake Bite had become preoccupied with something that had moved at the end of the corridor they were currently peering down.

"Now the fun begins-sssss!" the villainous reptile sprinted with the grace of any predator of the wilds down the corridor, snakeskin cloak flailing behind her. Dr Horrible made a half-hearted attempt to run after her, but soon slowed to a quick semi-jog. At the end of the darkened passage, he could see Snake Bite circling a cowering figure, a woman, probably no older than twenty five or so. Snake Bite cackled in a most cruel manner as the poor woman whimpered in fear.

Then, with a speed and agility only seen in the natural world, the villain lunged in a fashion identical to her cold-blooded name-sake. Snake Bite grasped the worker by her neck and sank her venomous fangs into the pale flesh. Her victim twitched as the deadly poison flooded her veins, firing every neuron and nerve simultaneously, causing muscles to contract and inflicting pain so great that the young woman couldn't even manage to scream- only her eyes told Doctor Horrible of the agony she was experiencing.

It was over in moments. The woman slumped to the floor, dead. The Doctor approached the corpse and the killer in a numb state of disbelief. He felt sick, even worse than when he had witnessed that warped account of his confrontation with Captain Hammer on that Halloween night. He was stunned by Snake Bite's callousness, disgusted and frightened by the nonchalance with which she dispatched another human.

_'You would have done that to Hammer…'_

Dr Horrible shuddered and shook his head, just a fraction, at his internal voice. He looked at the smug Snake Bite, who was leering over her kill.  
"How…I don't…" Billy bent to look at the face of the innocent before them. Sure, she was shorter and had brown hair, but in this light her eyes could've belonged to Penny.  
_"And yet you didn't save her. Seems the ELE was wrong- perhaps you ARE one of them…"_

"Ssss-entiment, Horrible, gets-sss in the way of everything. Learn not to feel, and maybe you'll fit in better." Snake Bite kicked the woman onto her side, obscuring her face. The Doctor dragged his eyes away from the body and followed the villain towards the door at the end of the corridor.

"We'll be taking this staircas-ssse: there are three different sets to the thirty fifth floor, where Hammer is-sss being kept. Bowie and Normal will be covering the over two." The reptilian criminal turned to face the Doctor with a look of most venomous loathing on her face.

"I s-ssswear if you pis-ssss me off, I will turn you into shoes."

* * *

"Don't they ha-have lifts in this place?" twenty two floors later they were still climbing the wretched stairs. Well, 'climbing' might not be an entirely appropriate word- perhaps the word 'crawling' would be better suited. The poor Doctor's worries had been temporarily forgotten in the light of the numerous stitches that were throbbing through his sides. Even Snake Bite was looking a little flustered and out of breath.

"All of- of the lifts were automatically disabled when we breached the compound wall. Security- security protocol." Horrible groaned and forced his weary legs to move forward. He found himself almost physically having to lift each leg onto the next stair.

"I don't understand why- why Professor Normal or I couldn't have reactivated them…" Dr Horrible grumbled as they proceeded to the next floor. Which was followed by a next floor. And another after that. In the final fourteen floor stint they encountered no other humans (which was probably a very good thing as neither ELE member was in a fit state to get in a tussle with a burly security guard) and when they _did_ reach floor thirty five, both Horrible and Snake Bite collapsed onto the cold concrete floor, groaning from the burning pain in their calves. Horrible would have quite liked to spend the next eternity and a half sleeping on that floor, but at that moment, Professor Normal burst through the door (not at all out of breath), dragging an exhausted Dead David Bowie behind him.

"What are you lot playing about at- we've got a job to do! Bad Horse will be furious if he finds out you lot are all sleeping on the job. I _told_ him that we should've kept that ELE fitness programme running…" the Professor roughly pulled Snake Bite and her Horrible companion to their feet and pushed them through the double doors. The room they were now in was the same octagonal shape as the entrance hall, but rather than containing a few computers, a couple of sofas for visitors and the odd potted ficus, was completely void of anything and everything. Instead, there were jail cells. A lot of them. The layout of the place was essentially very odd: hundreds of cells lined the outer walls of this section of the prison fairly large and furnished with creature comforts that two to three men shared. But there was also a central block of solitary confinement units. Unlike the outer cells, these had solid metal doors and a small slit for food to be passed through. The four ELE members slowly made (well, staggered) their way around floor thirty five's high security unit. The crooks and criminals within the cells leered at the four men, watching them with intense curiosity. Some called out, asking if they were going to be freed. Professor Normal scoffed at the puny crooks- domestic murderers, lunatics. Not worth ELE time.

Every now and then, they passed the unconscious guards that Professor Normal had seemingly dealt with on his way to find Horrible and Snake Bite. One groaned as they passed, his face covered in vicious burns. Horrible flinched as he recognised the work of his own Elect-zodes- small electrode-like devices which emitted large currents of electricity when activated. Meant to be used to disable the power or electrical systems within a building. Not harm other people.

_"Just another reason why Penny doesn't deserve a man like you."_

"Confinement cell 35:29." Professor Normal stopped outside of one of the central cells. The room was locked tight- only unlockable with a valid key-card and authorised fingerprint.

"Bowie, bring that guard you put under a little while ago over here." The undead villain complied. He snapped his fingers and the four of them were soon joined by a portly man. Bowie snapped his fingers once more and the guard slid his key-card into the machine and pressed a stubby finger onto the sensor. Two beeps and a series of metallic clicks later and the door swung open to reveal…another door. A very big door. With a security pad that contained possibly every conceivable symbol- letters, numbers, emoticons. You name it, it was on that pad.

"I believe this is where you come in, Doctor Horrible. I hear that, amongst your many talents, you are an expert code breaker. The next Sherlock Holmes, or something to that effect."

The Doctor nodded and bent over to examine the code pad. He'd had inkling that it was decoding skills Professor Normal was after for this little excursion. Few people knew it, but he was a wiz at more than just chemistry and the art of mucking everything up. He could finish a Sudoku puzzle in less than two minutes. Whilst this was considerably more difficult than the math problems in The Tribunal, he was pretty confident that he could break the code.

"Well, I can tell straight away that only the letters have been used to input the code- so we're looking for a word. Notice how the numbers and symbols have barely been touched…" The others peered at the code pad. Sure enough, upper buttons appeared to be hardly worn.

"Whoever programmed the door wasn't particularly smart. They've made the code personal as opposed to random…" he examined the key pad a little closer, peering at each key with intense scrutiny.

"Okay, I'm gonna need you to bring that guard back so I can look for any clues on him that might indicate what the password to the door is." Bowie snapped his fingers, and the guard returned. He stood still in the hallway with a completely vacant expression as the Doctor began to search his pockets.  
"An iPod…this might have something useful on it…" the Doctor flicked through the device, very aware of the stares of the ELE members on his back. He span through the playlists- apparently, this man was a very big fan of Aimee Mann...

Thinking that it could be of some use, Horrible stored the information in his little genius brain as he proceeded to search the man's pockets. Driver's Licence, security cards, credit cards, wallet… nothing that was of much use. The man's name was Fredrik Stahlberg, 66 years old, a German national who had emigrated to the US some time ago. There were no pictures of children in his wallet, so it seemed unlikely the password was going to be a 'Benjamin' or a 'Hannah'. The Doctor checked the man's blazer pockets and pulled out a red liquorish stick, a little like a Twizzler- but not.

The pieces were beginning to slot together now. Horrible rolled up the man's sleeve in search of further clues. Yes! On his wrist- a tattoo! It looked a little like a daisy chain, but instead of being green it was-

"I have it! I know the password!" Bowie shared an impressed glance with Professor Normal as the red-clad scientist before them tapped the eight-letter word into the key pad:

REDVINES

Horrible stepped back as a series of metallic clicks reverberated all through the hallway. Now that the excitement of solving the puzzle had dissolved, the Doctor felt his spirits plummet. Hammer was free now. All those years of planning and scheming. All that hard work to finally defeat Captain Hammer and tarnish his name- for nothing. Everything he had worked for was about to be undone.

_"Not everything…there is still Penny."_

_"But she's only with you because she doesn't know what you did. When she finds out, she'll drop you like yesterday's news and go straight back to Captain Hammer!"_

"Horrible." The sound of Normal's dulcet tones brought Billy out of his reverie. He was stood in front of the unlocked door, shoulders sagging, breath catching in his throat.  
"Your work here is done. We have no further need for you; you may return home." From behind his goggles, Dr Horrible studied the Professor's face. Was that…a look of sympathy he saw?

"Thank you." Horrible noticed the thickness in his own voice. He hurried away from the door and towards the stairs. As he left, he could hear the 'whoosh' of the door opening and the voices of his ELE comrades as they greeted their newest member.

It all made Billy feel sick.

Before he knew it, he was stood back outside in the LA sunshine. The winter winds nipped at his face, but the sun basked him in its warming rays so he didn't feel the seasonal gusts quite so much. Horrible stared at the people in the streets, bustling around as they shopped for Christmas presents for their nearest and dearest. Happy faces, smiling faces. None of them with crushed dreams, internal conflicts and tough decisions to make. He envied every one of them. The loving couples, the gleeful children, even the angsty teenagers. He wished there was some kind of formula for a life of happiness, a life where one could get everything he wanted, everything he needed and _keep_ it.

_"There is a way. But you know what you need to do first…"_

Horrible knew the little voice in his head was right. He knew he had been putting it off- scared that…well. But he had to do it. He had to say it to her. Tell her. Their friendship and anything…more could NOT be built upon a lie. If it was, he would never truly be happy.

So with that, the Doctor turned on heel and headed in the direction of his apartment. To tell Penny what transpired that night so many months ago. To tell her what he did.

To tell her everything.


	14. Chapter 14

**Finally finished Chapter 14! Huzzah! Not long left now. I hope you've enjoyed the story so far, and don't want to kill me for my slow updating (I've been at this story for over a year now). I apologise if my mechanical details either confuse you or are wrong; I don't know squat about carburettors, so most of that is just guesswork (that'll all make sense later, I swear).  
So yeah- Chapter 14! **

Chapter 14

Breathe. Breathe.  
Billy faced the door of his apartment, breath catching in his throat. He could practically feel Penny on the other side of the door. He wasn't ready for this. Not one bit. He could imagine the look of horror, disgust, _hatred_ on her face. Horrible brought a shaking hand to his head, dragging his fingers through his untidy blonde hair. His stomach churned and Billy wondered vaguely if this was what it felt like to be a washing machine; emotions tumbling all around within, tangling with one another until each feeling was indistinguishable from the other. Fear, loathing, despair, love- all mixed together inside of him to form some kind of emotional soup which tasted oddly of bile and tears.

No, wait- that actually _was _bile and tears.

Dr Horrible swallowed hard to prevent himself from making a total mess of the hallway and wiped away the moistness on his face. He tried to calm himself down a little, but to no avail. He had made a complete pig's ear of _everything_: all the perfectness of the past few weeks was unravelling so fast that Billy felt that his head was going to spin right off of his shoulders. Horrible hacked back a few lungful's of air. Steadied his shaking arms. He _had_ to do this. He had to at least right one thing- he couldn't carry on lying to Penny about this. Well, he supposed it wasn't so much _lying_ as omitting the truth, but she had to know the full story. He would never forgive himself otherwise.

With that thought in mind, the Doctor straightened his back and took one last deep breath. He was going to walk in there, look into Penny's eyes and tell her about the Death Ray. Why he built it. How it resulted in her death. The thing was currently sat in a locked box beneath his bed, still in bits and untouched since he had put it in there after they were forced to move from their previous apartment. Billy couldn't bring himself to look at it again- just thinking about the monstrosity he had created made him feel dizzy and ill. It was his own personal Frankenstein's monster. And he _despised _it.

The metal of the handle felt cold beneath his glove. He pushed down on it, exhaling at the same moment. He could feel his muscles twitching and willed them not to fail him. The apartment was full of light, the afternoon sun streaming in through the French doors that lead onto the tiny balcony that gave a bird's eye view of the LA streets. Penny sat on the tiles of the balcony, head bent over something on her lap. Her scarlet hair danced in the light breeze, the sun reflecting off of it in a way that made it look just like the leaping of a flame. The door clicked shut behind the Doctor and her snapped around. Upon seeing Billy, Penny grinned, beckoning him out onto the balcony. He took another moment to steady himself a little more before approaching the door. It slid open relatively smoothly.

"Penny I-"

"Shh, Billy," hushed Penny, putting a finger to her lips "look who I found…" she shifted her body a little, revealing a dishevelled-looking crow nestled in an old blanket. The thing was as mangy as hell- the intelligent ebon eyes were dull, its feathers ruffled and matted with mud, the left wing held out to the side at an odd angle. The bird cawed once and pecked half-heartedly at the spoon of baby milk formula Penny was offering it.

"I found him lying on the balcony- I think the poor little guy must've crashed and broken his wing." She ran a careful finger over the bird's neck; it shivered, and buried deeper into her lap.

"Can you pass me some of that medical gauze please Billy, so that I can secure his wing?" The Doctor complied, hurrying into the kitchen to search for the first aid kit. When he brought it to her, Penny pulled out the bandage and delicately bound the bird's wing to its side so that it could do no further damage.

Penny gazed upon the crow with a loving expression that Horrible had never seen a human give to another creature. The extent of her caring for even what most considered the vilest of beings never failed to stun the Doctor. The crow was, honestly, an ugly brute- on closer inspection, Billy had noticed that one eye was actually missing, leaving nothing more than a hollow socket. It was fairly old and most- no, _ever_y- other person in the world would have just left it in the gutter to die.  
"Hopefully that will do until we can take him to the vets." She said as she finished the wrapping with a relish of her hands. She looked up at Billy, and her smile slid from her face a little.

"I know it seems stupid to you that I-"

"It's not stupid at all." The Doctor said this in a firm voice, for once doing everything he could to hold her gaze.  
_'Now would be the opportune moment to come clean, you know…'  
_  
"They died in a car crash, you know." Penny was fiddling with the edge of the blanket whilst the bird began to doze.  
"Your parents?" Penny nodded solemnly.

"Moist said that you had found them when you were…you know. So I thought I should tell you.  
"He also said that you and Eu- Captain Hammer," she continued "were working together. I know you said that when you told me about everything that had happened-"Horrible felt his neck prickle uncomfortably "-but I don't understand…you hate him. You two were- are- arch nemesis. Why would you work with him?"

"I would have done anything to have brought you back." The Doctor froze as he realized the full implications of his words. Both parties turned scarlet and looked away from one another.

"I'm not sure…if I wholly like that idea…" mumbled Penny, still blushing furiously. Billy had to admit- she was right.

But it was true.

"So…" Billy rocked back and forth on his heels, trying to think of a way to diffuse the awkwardness.  
"You-you were saying…about your parents…I mean- if you don't want to talk about it I understand but-" Penny smiled as Billy stumbled and stuttered through his sentence.

"It's okay- it was a long time ago. I still miss them, of course, but it made me who I am today, so I don't mind telling you.  
"I was eleven years old. We had spent the day down at the beach in Santa Monica and we were driving down the freeway. The sun was just beginning to set. The radio was on- it was Bryan Adams and mom and dad were singing along to it…well, more howling in my dad's case. It had been such a nice day, plenty of sun…ice cream…nice walk along the pier. I was in the back, I think I must've been dozing off…

"The next thing I remember was noise. So much noise. There was a huge screeching of horns and breaks, and then the sound of metal on metal. I remember being thrown to the side as a lorry ploughed into our little tin can of a car…" Billy stood silently, unsure of what to do. He settled with sitting on the floor so as to be closer to the red-head.  
"It was horrible Billy. It hurt so bad. The car was crushed against the barrier like it was nothing more than a piece of paper. I was screaming, I felt blood trickling down my face, and I couldn't see my parents. Everything was dark. I could see the outline of the roof, where it had crumpled and folded from where the truck had pushed us into the divide. I could feel the seat-belt cutting into my neck, the glass that had peppered my face, and the shrapnel cutting into my hands as I tried to find a way out. I could hear the other cars stopping outside, I could hear people yelling, but I couldn't hear my mom or dad. The front of the car, or what should've been the front, was completely silent. And that scared me more than being trapped did.

"They pulled me out eventually. It was a woman- a stranger, not from the emergency services, just a passing motorist. She had seen it all happen, and had heard me, refused to leave until I had been pulled from the car. I spent a good twenty minutes just crying into the woman's shoulder, sat in the middle of the freeway. She kept stroking my hair and telling me it was going to be okay, that everything would be fine. But I was old enough to know that my parents were dead. The car was…it was such a mess Billy. It didn't look like a car anymore. There just wasn't any way they could've lived.

"I didn't have any other relatives. My grandparents were already dead, and I didn't have any aunts or uncles. I spent my teens in the care system; I never found a long-term foster family, or someone to adopt me. But I always felt _lucky_. There were kids there that had never been loved by their parents, who had been abandoned or beaten. Kids that had lived on the streets, been left to go hungry and die. I felt fortunate to have survived the accident, to have had parents who cared for me and loved me unconditionally for eleven years, whereas some children didn't have that, and some people _never _have that." With care, Penny picked up the injured bird as she got to her feet, Billy quickly following suit as she went inside the apartment.  
"It's why," she continued, placing the cawing bird into an old cardboard box beside the sofa "I decided I was going to do absolutely everything I could to make sure that people and animals alike knew they were cared for and loved by someone. I knew that working for the charities wouldn't pay well – or, heck anything- but I also knew that I wouldn't be happy going to sleep in a big mansion with a lot of money in the bank if there was, say, an old man sleeping in a gutter without a friend in the world or a dog on the street looking for scraps and a caring hand. We should try to look after everything on this planet, no matter how big or how small, because everyone deserves to live a life with love and happiness. The world _is _a mess, but we should try to do everything we can to try and un-mess even the littlest bit of it." She turned to the lab-coat-wearing Dr Horrible beside her and smiled, taking his hand.

"I suppose that's where we're the same- we both want to change the world. Okay, we both took different approaches to it, but it's fundamentally what we wanted to do; make the world a better, fairer place."

_'Okay, dude.' _Billy lurched slightly as his internal voice (his conscience?) burst through into is conscious mind. _'This is one of your last chances to TELL PENNY THE TRUTH! Got it? Tell her! We both know you'll regret it otherwise…'_

"We're not the same though Penny!" Horrible felt the blood pounding in his ears as his words finally began to tumble out.

"You are the kindest, most selfless human being on the damn planet! You've been through so much and you're still…you! Whereas I… I went through a fraction of what happened to you, and _look _at me! I'm a villain, a _fucking_villain, I've done awful things and I- Penny are you alright?" Billy came to an abrupt hault in his self-depreciating soliloquy as the young woman before him bent over in a sudden wave of pain.

"The bucket…please…I'm going to be sick…" the Doctor dragged the sickie bucket over in the nick of time; he held back Penny's long hair as she retched, her whole frail frame shaking from the violent heaving. Once the wave of nausea had passed, Penny reached for the small bottle pills Normal had given to Horrible, and swallowed one.

"Stupid stomach flu…" she muttered, wiping her mouth. "The pills work well though- they stop me from throwing up so much…" As well as the tablets may or may not work, the Doctor couldn't help but feel a little uneasy at the pale pallor of Penny's skin, the sudden clamminess of her hand. He had noticed that since she'd had the stomach bug, she had lost a considerable amount of weight. Penny had always been slender, but Billy noticed now that her collar bones jutted out in a very unhealthy manner…

"Perhaps we should take you to a doctor…" Billy slid his fingers around her wrist to take her pulse, and was worried somewhat by the raised pace of the throbbing beneath her skin.

"I thought you were a doctor. Or are you one of those fake doctors- like a doctor of history as opposed to the legit ones?"  
"You caught me. I'm a doctor of physics. Of the quantum variety."

"I don't suppose you get many patients then- unless neutrinos get pneumonia." The Doctor grinned. He supposed she couldn't be _that _ill if she was still able to take the mick out him.

"I'm fine Billy, I swear, it's just a stupid stomach bug; it'll pass in a few days. I was actually feeling a lot better- until about a minute ago. I guess I should have skipped that third piece of jam on toast."

The Doctor would've liked to describe the smile that Penny gave to him at that moment- all its warmth, its sincerity, the general beauty and kindness behind it, but:  
a) He didn't want to end up sounding like Bella Swan from Twilight  
b) The author of this story is fast running out of adjectives  
and  
c) Moist, once again, decided he was going gate-crash upon this moment of emotion.

"Urgent…urgent message from Bad Horse!" panted the trusty side-kick, clutching at the stitch which was ripping through his side.

"Wha-what? I don't understand; Normal dismissed me after… I thought I had the rest of the day off!"

"Well, I just heard- Normal came running up to me to tell me whilst I was at Henchman Training- that his Badness has called for an orientation meeting and requires that you and all henchmen in your service attend!"

"For the love of-" Horrible flitted to the sofa where he had previously discarded his gloves and goggles and tried desperately to thrust his arm through the eye-piece.

"What time is the meeting at?"

"Five minutes ago."

"A little bit more warning would've been nice!" Billy tugged his boots onto his feet, snatching up the bag of ray guns beside them.  
"Are you going to be alright on your own, Penny? I'm so sorry, but this just can't be avoided- Bad Horse-"

"I'll be fine Billy. I'll look after this little guy while you're gone, make sure he hasn't been injured anywhere else." Penny turned to tend the bird in the box, but he saw for the merest moment, a flicker of… something on her face. Unhappiness? Displeasure? The Doctor couldn't place it, but he had a feeling it was something to do with his less-than-honest occupation.

It wouldn't have shocked him if it _was_ something to do with his working for the ELE. Penny might insist that she 'didn't really mind' and that 'they were really the same' or that 'it bothered her, but she could understand why he had chosen this path', but she was a philanthropist- his work and her morals were obviously going to clash. He had noticed these micro-expressions before whenever his career was mentioned; it seemed very much that the red-head disapproved of the ELE, despite how well she tried to hide it.

Billy sighed internally: this was yet another thing he was going to have to figure out when he returned home...  
_'You really have messed up everything Billy.'_

* * *

Dr Horrible and Moist sprinted down the corridor towards the Conference Room, very much aware they were twenty minutes for this 'orientation' meeting. The Doctor was not exactly feeling at his tip-top; so far today, he had helped bust out his mortal enemy out of jail (which, he had later realized, for the second time in the space of a few months), completely stressed by his relationship with Penny and now he had to present himself before the ELE. Presumably to greet aforementioned enemy into the ELE.

It took the combined effort of both Moist and Horrible to open the great oak doors, and both were greeted with looks of distain from their fellow members of the ELE. The Conference Room was cramped, what with all the henchmen piled in too.

"NEIGH!"

"Bad Horse says it's nice of you to join us Dr Horrible and Incredibly Sweaty Man." The Doctor grimaced at the stern look her received from his Badness; he was very much hoping that he wouldn't be receiving a Death Whinny this afternoon. He scanned the room, noticing Snake Bite's smug expression, Professor Normal's apologetic half-smile and…him.

It had only been a couple of weeks, but the sight of Captain Hammer still jolted the scientist's stomach. He looked very proud of himself to be at the left hand of the head of ELE himself. He didn't look all that different, with the exception of the black mask that now covered his eyes. The man sat tall and proud in his chair; he had obviously adjusted to a life of crime _exceptionally_well considering just a matter of months ago he was beating the crap out of 90% of the people sat in the room with him.

"So. Bad Horse has called us all to meet for a number of highly important reasons, I assure you." Said (Fake) Thomas Jefferson in his most bored voice. He wasn't particularly impressed that he had been called away from his Monticello mansion (where he had been hiding under the staircase for the past three days) for stupid introductory meetings. The Doctor watched as the phoney past President take a couple of notes.

"Of course, you are all aware that another has joined the great ranks of the Evil League of Evil. All of you, please muster your warmest welcome for Captain Hammer; super hero turned super villain. We are all certain that his unparalleled strength will be of a great use to the ELE in the near future." The assembly clapped loudly for the Captain (with the exception of Horrible and Moist). The douche got to his feet and bowed at the crowd, soaking up the attention like a J-Cloth.

"Thank you all for your awesome words!" Horrible rolled his eyes, shooting Moist 'the look'.

"But I've got to thank Dr Horrible," Billy felt his heart leap as he heard his name mentioned "for being the reason I'm here today. Without him, I might have still been using you guys as punch bags!" The crowd laughed, whilst Horrible scowled darkly, his eye twitching a little again.

"Thanks so much bud. Couldn't have done it without you. Beats being LA's best hero; I get a totally awesome mask to go with my outfit. Really shows off my cheekbones." Captain Hammer gave the Doctor a thumbs up before retaking his seat.

"Well, we all hope you'll be with us for a while to come Captain Hammer."

"BRRRUUUUU!"

"Oh yes; Bad Horse would like to proceed to the most pressing matter of this afternoon. We were going to hold this meeting tomorrow, but with Hammer's joining party being today, it made sense to get both things done at once. This concerns all of you, and we require you to listen carefully before attacking the finger buffet at the back of the hall." Jefferson shuffled his notes a little.

"Professor Normal, if you would like to take centre stage." The Professor got to his feet, cleared his throat and proceeded to give the speech with which the Doctor was somewhat acquainted with: the 'We've finished the Resurrect-Ohm-Metre and are going to start taking over the world' speech.

"We have now completed the Resurrect-Ohm-Metre, my fellow evil-doers, and will soon be able to begin world domination!" The whole room exploded with cheers. Again, with the exception of Horrible; he was busy staring at the table in front of him.

"The machine is now working at full capacity, and will soon be able to start churning out a mass of mindless undead minions for us with which we can over-throw the government and take control of planet Earth!" more shouts of exhalation followed this announcement.  
"Over the next few weeks, the Egors," Normal nodded at the hodge-podge beings all crammed in the left corner of the room "will begin to remove the corpses in the cemeteries around LA so that I can begin the process of regenerating and reanimating them. The results of the device have been outstanding so far. We must only look at our recently resurrected Lord Lucan for the…living proof."

"I do concur!" cried the hound-master, raising his glass of port to toast the Professor.

"I have found my restored life most fulfilling; I have much missed committing heinous crimes with my contemporaries…" Normal smiled with satisfaction at Lucan, who had returned to petting his 'hounds', which whined and slobbered by the man's feet. As he did so, a hacking cough gripped his body, and he drew an embroided handkerchief from within his pocket. Normal waited for the man's coughing to subside before clearing his own throat.

"Tie Die and Bowie," continued the mad scientist "I am going to require you to obtain more of the fluid for the tank, in the same manner as you did before." The dark haired woman nodded gleefully, twirling her batons in a menacing manner.  
"Consider it done, Professor."

"Excellent. Jefferson, I am going to need you to send letters to all the world leaders. Don't be specific, but inform them that if they do not hand over power to us, there will be…consequences. Terrible consequences. Such as the death of a large portion of the populace."  
"I will get onto that after I've organized my quill collection."

"Fine, fine, just make sure they're done by next Wednesday. The plan is simple and will be put into action by the end of this month. We will simply strategically set an army of zombies upon the major cities in the US. When America falls under our power, we will reanimate the casualties and launch an attack on the major political powers of the world. China. The UK. India, Australia, the European Union. All will fall into our hands, and the ELE will be the supreme rulers of the world. They don't stand a chance against us, for they will be fighting a force that cannot be stopped. And the more they fight, the more troops they lose and the more we gain. It's fool proof!" The cheers in the room reached a cataclysmic volume. But Billy didn't cheer. He had always been against murder- how was death creative? How did death solve the problems of life? But not only that, he could imagine what Penny would think if she heard the Professor's plan- the plan that he, Billy, had aided by helping construct the Resurrect-Ohm-Metre. It may be a machine of rebirth, but ultimately, it was a machine of great destruction.

"The rest of you will find your instructions for The Great Plan in your pigeon holes. They're the yellow sheets. They'll tell you what you are required to do for The Great-"

"NEIGH!"

"Bad Horse says we need a better name for the plan. Your name is unimaginative and sucks."

"Fine, what do _you_suppose we call it Jefferson?"

"The Zombie Apocalypse of 08?"

"That will do. You could call it 'The Dastardly Cafuffle of the Year' if you wanted. I don't care for such details."

"I like that name… all those in favour of calling the plan 'The Dastardly Cafuffle of the Year'?" Normal sighed as a sea of hands shot up.  
"Motion passed. That's going on the official records."

"Whatever. Shall we call this meeting to a close? The finger sandwiches are going to go mutate if we keep at this much longer, and Hammer still needs the tour of the building." With the thud of Bad Horse's hoof on the table and the scraping of chairs, the meeting came to a conclusion. The Doctor straightened his goggles and headed towards the buffet, giving Captain Hammer as wide a berth as possible. He grabbed a couple of chocolate fingers and a cheese sandwich from the table and nibbled at them, avoiding the many other ELE members as possible. He noticed Moist talking with the Pink Pummeler, one arm wrapped around Switch, oblivious to the Doctor's internal dilemmas. Billy picked at his sandwich, pulling the crust from the white of the bread as he sat in the corner of the room as he sat deep in thought. Serious decisions were to be made. He had always heard of people talking of how they 'had to make sacrifices' for their loved ones. The moment would come where he would have to make a choice, if he wished to his friendship with Penny to become…something more. And then there was still the whole issue of telling her about the Death Ray. He decided that should be done first. He _needed _to do this. He would so it the second he got home. No distractions. He would come clean and then see if she…

No. He could conceive the idea that she would…it was just too painful. He loved her so much; he could bear to think of losing her over his own stupidity and jealousy that had consumed him in those weeks leading up until her death.

A tap on his shoulder made him jump completely out of his skin. The Doctor turned around to see Professor Normal standing above him.  
"I need some last minute help with the machine, if you wouldn't mind abandoning the festivities."

"I'd be glad to help." said Billy, grateful for any reason to stop him from thinking about the choices he would soon have to make. He followed Normal into the quite of the corridor, through the building until they descended into the laboratory. The metallic doors whooshed open once more to reveal the great machine.

"I just need some help fixing a carburettor in the centre of the machine. It came loose during one of the test runs. I'd do it myself, but it's a fiddly job which my hand doesn't allow for." Horrible nodded as Normal handed him a screwdriver (not the sonic kind sadly) and the Doctor set to work fixing…whatever the hell was wrong with this chunk of metal.

"I think the idel speed screw is loose. It shakes a little whenever I run the machine."

"Ah, I see." Billy tightened the aforementioned screw before examining the carburettor more closely.

"Looks like the gasket is busted too…"

"You must be joking!" Normal pounded the nearby desk, denting it slightly.

"Sadly not; the engine in the thing is idling at the moment right? That racket it's making- we've got a vacuum leak in this one."

"Damn it! Just take the thing out then, we're going to have to replace it. I was hoping it was just the loose screw making the noise. Don't need these kind of set-backs: I want the plan in full motion by the new year. We'll have to order a new one from-"

Both scientists paused as they heard the door slide open behind them. In the door way stood Dead Bowie and none other than Captain Hammer.

"Hope we're not interrupting anything. Just showing Hammer the labs."

"Shiny!" the Captain stroked the stainless steel counters, peering into the flasks containing many dangerous chemicals. Horrible couldn't help but wistfully hope that Hammer would be fool enough to mistake one of them for a bottle of Ribena.

"So, how are you Dr Horrible?" enquired Hammer with mock interest. Horrible could see the maliciousness in the Captain's grin.

"I was okay until I saw you in _my_lab."

"Ahem."

"I meant _our_, Professor." Hammer smirked at the Doctor.

"Plan didn't exactly go according to plan, now did it Horrible?"

"Well, this wasn't how I had imagined things turning out…" Horrible looked fearfully at the Captain's clenched fist. He had a feeling he was about to get paid back for handing Hammer over to the LA and going back on their deal.

"I knew you were horrible, Horrible, but I didn't think you'd break a pinkie promise. Now that's just low…" the Doctor flinched as Hammer's fist, now re-imbued with its original strength, fixed itself around his coat collar.

"Hey, hey, hey!" cried Bowie. "We have an agreement Captain Hammer; you and Horrible are on the same side now- you are expected to act civil to one another despite your past. That means no bludgeoning each other to death when nobody is looking. Now release him Hammer; this was all on your forms, remember?" most unwillingly, the ex-hero relinquished his grip on Horrible, who collapsed against the desk, glaring at the Tool.

"Er…perhaps Professor Normal would like to show you the Resurrect-Ohm-Metre?" said Bowie in an attempt to diffuse the situation.  
"Certainly. This is the machine that Horrible and I have toiled over for a number of months. As I said in the meeting earlier, it has the ability to reanimate the dead, with a turnover of one hundred resurrections every four hours. Now, of course, working at such a pace means that they aren't perfectly re-assembled corpses, particularly those most damaged by decay, but they serve their purpose. Now, over here we have…" Normal ushered Hammer and Bowie over to the controls, leaving the Doctor clutching at the table. He turned to look at his reflection in the polished steel. He could make out shadows appearing beneath his eyes, and an almost gaunt appearance to his cheeks. It appeared that he had been neglecting his health over the past few months. In fact, the Doctor could remember the last time he'd sat down and watched TV, or had a cooked meal even. He pushed his blonde hair back so that it didn't stick out at odd angles whilst he had his goggles on. He wondered if all this stress and worry was going to start making his hair fall out. Billy very much hoped not; if there was one look he couldn't rock, it was bald. The Doctor cast a glance over his shoulder, and saw Bowie, Normal and Hammer gathered around the controls of the Resurrect-Ohm-Metre, the buffoon in black almost pressing the red button that activated the thing before the Professor quickly averted a disaster. Billy scowled as Normal proudly explained the mechanisms of the machine to the newest member of the ELE.

He could still hardly believe that he and Hammer were now on the same side. I mean, he _had_ been working with Hammer for a couple of months, but they weren't on the same side; they were still opponents, still arch-nemesis. That was something that had never changed. Never _could_ change. He despised everything about the man; his idiocy, his bulky frame, despicable personality, rugged good looks, superior strength. The fact that he had managed to win over Penny's love in the first place.

The others were very much preoccupied with the machine, so Billy figured he wouldn't be missed. He left the lab and ascended the stairs the main hallways, hoping that he could get Moist to drive him back to the apartment. It didn't take him long to find his henchman; Moist was still at the finger buffet, seemingly intent on not wasting even a single lady finger.

"Huy Dwoc!" said Moist, his mouth full of half-masticated cakey goodness.

"You…heading off any time soon?" the henchman swallowed hard.

"I swear you only have me around to provide a free taxi service…"

"Well, that's what henchmen are for. Completing menial tasks and ferrying their roommates across town."

"Fine fine. Switch has gone with Bait to go and see their grandma in San Diego, so it's not like I've got any better to do."

Moist plucked the keys for the Horrible Mobile out of his coat pocket and the pair trudged back to the car. On the way, the Doctor started to wonder if this would be one of the last times he ever walked out of that building…

* * *

"I can't believe you insisted we went to McDonalds before coming home!"

"You looked like you could do with a Big Mac."

"That may be true, but Penny is going to absolutely flip; you know she's against the eating of animals and corporate, soul-sucking giants."

"Penny's a vegetarian? Damn, I wasted a buck on McNuggets for her then…"

"Bin those, quick. I bet she can already smell the murder of innocent birds…"

Doctor Horrible fiddled with the apartment keys, finally getting it in the lock after three attempts. The door swung open to admit them. Odd. The sun had disappeared behind some clouds now, but there was no light on. Over by the sofa, the crow was squawking raucously.

"Shh, calm down you."

"You got a bird?" Billy waved a hand at Moist, telling him to quieten down.

"She might be asleep. I'm going to go check my room." For the past weeks, Penny had been sleeping in Billy's room (which he had offered up most chivalrously) whilst he had taken the couch. The Doctor crept into the room, just in case Penny was taking a nap. He pushed open the door a crack.

Nope. She wasn't there either.

"Penny?" Horrible was starting to feel a little uneasy now. He looked in Moist's room. Nothing. Just piles of laundry and a stack of DC comic books. Moist yelled to tell him she wasn't in the kitchen. The Doctor now entered the bathroom. The light was out in the darkened room, and it took a couple of attempts to find the cord.

The sight before him brought a scream to his lips.


	15. Chapter 15

**Okay, we're almost there now...almost there. It's been over a year ( because I am SO bad at updating) but I'm almost finished. Just a chapter left now I think. I really hope that the wait has been worth it and that you won't be disappointed in the fast-approaching end. Once again, I would like to thank all of you who have spent time reading my fic, and an extra thank you to all those who found the time to review; they really do mae me smile when I read them.  
****So, without further ado- the (possibly) penultimate chapter!**

Chapter 15

Penny was barely conscious. She shivered slightly where she lay on the bathroom floor, her skin a pale contrast to the terracotta tiles. A brown eye flickered open to see a blurred, red-clad figure stood above her. Penny could tell that he was yelling, but the sound seemed dampened, as though she were hearing Billy from under water. Another figure rushed into the room, and then left just as quickly. Penny could feel warm hands clutching at her forearm, testing her pulse for the second time that day. She wished she could grab Billy's hand, but her limbs felt like leaden weights; she was completely immobilized.

Penny struggled to remember what had led to her lying on the floor of the bathroom. She vaguely recalled vomiting after Billy had rushed of somewhere- probably to the ELE. There was coughing. Dizziness. The coughing gave way to more vomiting, but this time there was a metallic tang to it. Once it had started, it just didn't stop. She had slipped in and out of the darkness for the better part of two hours.

The worst part was the pain. The pain was unbearable.

* * *

There was blood everywhere. Slashes of sanguine coated the floors and walls of the cramped bathroom, dripping, pooling; congealing. It matted Penny's hair and had stained her brightly coloured clothes with ominous maroon blotches. She was so cold that, when Billy had gone to check her pulse, he thought that she might already be dead. Gently, he lifted her up from the floor, aware of what this scene was horribly reminiscent of.

Moist was in the living room, frantically gathering blankets to wrap Penny up in.

"There's no point calling an ambulance; it'll be quicker to drive her to the hospital." Moist nodded grimly, and passed the blankets to the Doctor. Billy tenderly wrapped the bleeding woman up in them, dabbing the corner of her mouth with the woollen cloth. She coughed violently, and a small dribble of blood coated her already scarlet lips. Horrible felt his own arms shaking as he carried Penny down the staircases of the apartment block, Moist in tow. He felt numb. He didn't understand- why had this happened? Why was she so ill? The Doctor's mind continued to race as he piled into the backseat of Moist's car and as they sped their way to the hospital. The trip should've been ten minutes, but only took five; Horrible insisted that his henchman not take his foot off of the accelerator for the duration of the journey. As soon as they pulled up beside the Good Samaritan Hospital, Horrible and Moist abandoned the car and raced towards the A and E entrance. It was only now that the Doctor became aware that he was still wearing his lab coat and goggles; he was getting a number of VERY odd stares from the hospital staff as they flew in through the automatic doors. Horrible made his way to the reception as fast as he could, slaloming past old biddies in wheelchairs and drunkards crawling along the floor. The woman behind the desk (tiny, middle-aged and with specks that magnified her eyes to the size of dinner plates) looked quite startled to be greeted by the site of the blonde scientist and his sweaty comrade carrying a woman covered in about a pint of her own blood.

"What seems to be the problem, Sir?" Dr Horrible gaped at her in disbelief. Did she really…?

"Oh, I don't know, I thought I'd just come here for a chat and a cuppa whilst my friend's life slowly ebbs away…" Horrible felt absolutely enraged at this woman's stupidity.

"This IS a hospital, right? This is the place where you bring sick or injured people, or did that change overnight?"

"Don't take that tone with me, young man! There appears to be nothing wrong with you or your friend!" The receptionist scowled at the Doctor. The room around them had fallen silent. All eyes were fixed upon Horrible and Moist.

"Are you BLIND?! She's dying, can't you see?" Penny groaned in his arms, and Billy gripped her hand harder.

"Who is 'she'? Is this some kind of prank?" The receptionist was looking rather angry now. Her spindly fingers were inching towards the SECURITY buzzer on the underside of her desk.

"What? She's right her, I'm holding her, you complete MORON!" It was rage that was now making Billy's frame shake. He felt close to tears; why wasn't this idiot acting? Why were all the doctors and patients looking at him as though he were mad when Penny was dying in his arms?

"Doc… this isn't working…something is really wrong…" Moist was casting a glance at the large crowd which had now assembled at the scene. The faces of the bystanders were…shifting. They looked almost enraged…

"Moist, we can't…she needs treating…someone, dear God, _help_ her!"

More blood was frothing at Penny's mouth. Her entire body quivered and her eye rolled to the back of her head so that only the whites were visible. They were fast running out of time; as he held her, the Doctor realized with horror that Penny's breathing was becoming increasingly shallower, her skin's temperature dropping by degrees as this unknown illness began to claw her very life away. It took Billy everything to hold himself together as he stepped away from the reception desk. Now, he noticed the less-than-amiable stares that they were getting from the public. As he carried Penny from the building, a couple of people tried to grab at the girl's hair. Horrible batted them away furiously.

"Moist-what's going on?" The people in the waiting room were beginning to stir more furiously, a few yelling and shouting in their attempts to reach the injured woman. The Doctor was forced to push the people off more viciously now, as they snatched at his coat in their efforts to attack Penny. Horrible was near the lobby doors now, but reaching hands were restraining him.

"MOIST!" he cried out in panic "Take Penny! Run, I don't understand, but-"

The Doctor's words were lost as a pair of warm hands clamped around his face. Horrible felt pangs of pain as he was kicked and scratched by the howling mob, but he refused to let go of Penny's now-motionless form until he felt the slimy skin of Moist brush against his. The crowd cried out in rage as the henchman fled the hospital, carrying the red-head in his arms. Immediately, Dr Horrible felt the scrabbling hands that had held him back release their hold as the owners gave chase of their human-rights-loving 'enemy'. The Doctor remained kneeling on the floor, unable to fathom what had just occurred. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the Horrible Mobile veer onto the road, swerving to avoid the crazed hospital patrons who pursued the vehicle as though it were the carriage of Lucifer himself. He wondered where Moist would take Penny- the apartment? The ELE headquarters? All that he knew was that Penny needed help, and fast. She wouldn't last long without some form of treatment.

That thought made the Doctor feel physically sick. He couldn't, physically couldn't understand why all of this had happened. Why had Penny become so ill so quickly? And why did it appear that the entire population of Los Angeles wanted her dead?

The Doctor needed answers. And he knew where to get them.

* * *

The sun was almost blinding when Horrible eventually ascended the stairs of the subway. But despite the glorious weather, Billy felt as though there were a leaden weight in the region of his stomach. He made his way towards the wrought iron gates of the ELE headquarter, where two Egors stood sentry. They admitted him into the grounds with lopsided grins. The Doctor felt odd as he walked along the gravel path; he was unsure whether it was to do with his uncertainty about his future amongst the super-villains, or if it was to do with the information he might be about to procure from his fellow scientist. He sped up his pace, aware that tears were starting to brim. Images of Penny dying kept flashing through his mind. He had to know why she had become so ill after her resurrection, and he believed that Professor Normal might know, considering he was the one who designed the machine. The Doctor vaguely remembered that, when the Professor had made the proposition to the members of the ELE, that he had mentioned something about 'side effects' from the Resurrect-Ohm-Metre. As he meandered through the corridors of the headquarters, the Doctor wondered if Penny's haemorrhaging and vomiting was something to do with that.

Dr Horrible had just about reached the stairs to the laboratory now. He decided to sprint the last little leg, but when he turned the corner-  
POW!

"OOF!"  
"I-I'm sorry." stuttered the Doctor, trying to straighten his goggles from the collision. Then he looked up to see who it was that he had run into.  
"Well, well. Doctor Horrible. We meet again."

"This is not a good time for a revenge beating, Hammer."

The Doctor tried to side-step his nemesis, but the man was blocking the door to the staircase.

"I wasn't going to beat you up, Horrible. Bad Horse said I couldn't, remember?" Horrible _did_ remember, but that did mean that he hadn't expected a wedgie from the Tool.

"That's nice to know, but I really need to go see Professor Normal, so if you wouldn't mind-"  
"I hear that Ginny is ill." That immediately stopped the Doctor from trying to push past the Captain.  
"Penny. _Penny_ is ill."

"Whatever. Either way, I hear that she's done for. Again."

"Please…stop…just let me past, I need-"

"Bleeding everywhere. Normal isn't sure that he can save her-"

"She's down there?! Hammer, _please_-"

"-dying, and you aren't down there to hold her hand-"

At this, Billy lost his temper, and attempted to clout the smug-looking Hammer right in his face. Unfortunately, Horrible was hindered by the fact that he punches like a wimp and that Hammer was about a head taller than him. Combined with his erratic aim, all Billy managed to do was lightly scuff the man's shoulder.

"HAMMER! LET ME PAST YOU-"

"Why should I? You _humiliated_ me, you took my strength and then double crossed me after I helped you make your Rezzy thing! Why should I move?" Horrible fell silent as he saw Hammer's face contort with rage.

"You took my life away, Horrible. You took my friends, you took my job. The whole thing may have helped me become a great villain (with a lot better pay than as a super-hero) true, but you still stole _my_ life. Do you want to know the truth Doctor?" Billy remained still.  
"I never really thought that you were _really_ horrible. I just thought you were some scrawny nerd who was jealous of people like me, who were so much more awesome than them. A little high-school geek who turned to villainy to try and get noticed. But I guess I was wrong; you're actually a really mean person who will do _anything_ to get what he wants. So I guess you actually are Doctor _Horrible_. And from what I remember Penny saying about saving the homeless badgers or whatever it was, I don't think that she would like a man like you." If Horrible had felt bad before, it didn't even begin to compare with how he felt now. For once in his life, Captain Hammer may have been right.

The click of metal on metal brought the Doctor out of his reverie.  
"I thought I heard your dulcet tones, Doctor." Professor Normal was stood at the very top of the stairs, with an almost sombre expression etched upon his face. A current of fear passed through Horrible's veins.  
"Is she-?"

"She's stable at the moment. She's unconscious, but I've stopped the haemorrhaging for now." The Doctor nodded, glancing at Captain Hammer, who was still blocking his path.

"Hammer, if you would, please allow the Doctor to get to the staircase. The pair of you can settle your differences at a later date." Hammer begrudgingly stepped to the side, glaring at Horrible as he passed.

"We both know I'm right." The Captain's last comment rang through Billy's ears long after he and the Professor had descended the stairs and had lost sight of the ex-hero.  
_

"I'm going to assume that, from the panicked expression on your henchman's face when he brought young Penny to me and your currently colourless countenance that you failed to listen to the large number of side-effects that accompany a resurrection performed by a Resurrect-Ohm-Meter?" Professor Normal and Horrible were inside the spotless interior of the laboratory now, which, for the time being, had been converted into a make-shift ward; in the centre, Penny lay motionless in a standard hospital bed, a plethora of life support machines and drips wired into her body. Moist stood by, looking on anxiously as the Professor fiddled with the settings on a number of the machines. Horrible sat silently at Penny's side, a firm grip on her pale hand. He didn't look up as the Professor addressed him, and replied without taking an eye off of his love.

"I vaguely recalled you saying…but I didn't think that...it would ever be this serious." Normal nodded as he adjusted the flow settings on Penny's nutrient drip.

"I would lecture you on the importance of paying attention to all important details, but I don't suppose you'd thank me for that right at this moment."

"No. Not really, Professor." Horrible watched on helplessly as Penny twitched a little against her linen bedding, her scarlet hair fanned out across the pillow. Over the past five minutes or so, Penny's heartbeat had begun to regulate, her breathing normalizing. The Professor had also checked her blood pressure. A little high, but slowly dropping to average.

"Just how serious are these side-effects, Professor?"

"Serious?" queried Normal, who was currently injecting a clear, viscous substance into the crook of the woman's elbow. "Depends on what you consider to be 'serious'. They are unlikely to kill her, but as you've clearly seen, without proper management they can…escalate. Unfortunately for young Penny here, she seems to have coped less well with resurrection than the likes of Lord Lucan has." Billy sighed heavily at this news.  
"How long will they persist for?"

"Indefinitely." If his last sigh had been heavy, this next one must have weighed the same as a military-standard tank.

"I can't believe that I've been _so_ stupid…"

"Well, I could have told you that one." The Professor finished up dosing Penny, and pulled the latex glove off of his single functioning hand with a slight snap.  
"The Resurrect-Ohm-Meter isn't really designed for casual resurrections, Dr Horrible; it's far more suited for the purpose I intend on using it for- a zombie apocalypse. The after-effects of resurrection are _very_ uncomfortable for any individual with a conscious mind. As well as potentially dangerous.  
"The world, you see," continued the Professor as he cleaned his work surfaces, "does not like it when people mess with the natural order, as both you and I have done. When people die, they are meant to remain _dead_. Death is very much intended to be a permanent state, and we have defied nature herself by attempting to claim back, not just the motor abilities of those who have passed on but the…minds, the-for want of a better word- _souls_ of the deceased. To be honest, I'm surprised it even worked; when I began constructing the Resurrect-Ohm-Meter, I was sceptical. Although my preliminaries indicated that a resurrection could be possible, I was rather chuffed when we actually managed to bring back Lord Lucan, complete with rational mind.  
"But, as I said, the world-the universe- doesn't like it. Not one bit. It tries to reject the individuals who don't seem to fit in with events. They are entities who should have quantum probabilities of 0, but instead do not.

"Moist," said the Professor, noting the henchman's bemused expression "what that means is that events _do_ occur for these resurrected people. If something has a quantum probability of above 0, then an event has a possibility of occurring. If the QP is 1, then the event will definitely occur. Do you understand?"  
"Er, I'm going to say yes even though that's totally not true; this physics stuff is way beyond my level."  
"Okay, fair enough; I'll skip the rest of the physics and cut to the chase. Basically, the illness which has so badly affected Penny is the universe trying to correct the order of things. In a way, the universe considers Penny a virus, and it is employing its anti-bodies in order to cleanse itself of infection."  
"So the universe is _attacking_ Penny?" Professor Normal nodded solemnly.

"In the most literal sense of the term. I'm pretty sure you will have noticed this. In fact I'm certain, from what Moist has told me."

"The people at the hospital? They chased after Penny; did they do that because the universe wanted rid of Penny? Because she 'upset the balance'?" Horrible had to admit, all of this was starting to make his head spin. There was so much to comprehend, and 99% of it sounded like the sort of stuff the local nutter wearing the tin foil hat spouted out on lazy Sunday afternoons.

"In a sense. But you forget Horrible; we _all _make up the universe. The universe isn't a deity, or a separate being. It encompasses all living things, every atom, every single fundamental particle. I'm going to guess that the people in the hospital waiting room attacked Penny as they sensed deep inside of them that she wasn't supposed to be there. That she was a threat to their existence. I doubt they even realised they were doing it- it would have been simply instinctive."

The Doctor got to his feet, and began to pace in the hope that the light exercise might somehow boost his brain function. Once again, he ran a hand through his blonde hair. If he did this much more he was either going to end up with premature bald spots or a permanent quiff, but right at this very moment in time, bad hair was the very least of his concerns. Everything seemed to have escalated rather quickly; mere hours ago, Penny appeared to have nothing more than a stomach bug. Now he was being told that she was apparently having a negative reaction to the universe trying to off her again. Not for the first time, the Doctor felt as though his life was being written by someone smashing their face against the keyboard of their computer.

Much in the same manner that the Twilight books had been written.

But there were still things that didn't make sense. There were gaps in this denouement which needed to be filled. And as Professor Normal seemed to be the holder of all knowledge at this very moment in time, he supposed he was probably the best place to start.

"What I don't understand, "said the Doctor, his eyes affixed to floor "is why Lord Lucan doesn't seem to have been so badly affected by the resurrection as Penny. I would have thought that they would have both been seen as 'threats' to the way of things. I just want to know _why_…" He felt the tears before they began to pour forth. Normal shifted uncomfortably where he stood (he wasn't the best with this 'emotional' stuff) but deigned to answer Horrible's question as best he could whilst ignoring the silently sobbing villain.

"I don't really know about that, if I'm honest. Perhaps it does. Maybe it's equally painful for both of them. I know that he has experienced similar side effects to Penny- he has told me that much. But perhaps it doesn't affect him so much as he didn't return simply to enjoy life's pleasantries. That might be the difference. But I cannot say for sure." Horrible jerked his head downwards in acknowledgement of Normal's words.

At this very moment in time, Billy felt rather like a metaphorical skerry being battered by a figurative sea of emotion. He really didn't know _what_ to feel. There was pain and anguish at Penny's suffering. Guilt at unintentionally inflicting this pain upon her. Another lashing of guilt for not being wholly honest with the woman who he had loved since the first moment he had seen her through the window of a washing machine. A smidge of self-hatred for not being the man that Penny truly deserved. But fear was what swallowed him whole, what cast the shadows of uncertainty over his heart. The future seemed dark. To Billy, there appeared no silver lining. No possibility of a happy ending. Not with Penny, not with the ELE.

"If she were to continue like this," Billy felt his voice quiver as he spoke "what would her life be like?"

"Unpleasant, I imagine. As I said, these side effects are not going to go away. They can be managed with the correct medication, but she will remain ill. People will give her the cold shoulder; perhaps even attack her as they did today. A second life forged by the Resurrect-Ohm-Meter is not one that will be spent happily on sunlit jetties eating ice-cream and bon bons. I did actually say that when I presented the idea, you know-"

"I don't doubt that. But I was desperate. I love her, Professor, with all my heart and all my-"

"Okay, Doctor!" Normal put a hand up to stop what was obviously going to be a sickening spiel about love and the meaning of life. "As sympathetic to your situation as I am, we are not twelve year old girls and I am not you BFF. So if we can leave that sort of thing to Jennifer Aniston -"

"Sorry Professor. I just… don't know what to do right now."

"Is this to do with the young girl lying quite lifelessly on the bed in front of us, or does your career with the ELE factor into your uncertainty too?"

"Wait, WHAT?" Both Normal and Horrible were slightly startled by Moist's outcry. The henchman had been all but forgotten over the past few minute's exchange.

"You're not seriously thinking about quitting, are you Doc? After everything you did to get accepted into the ELE?" To Moist, his employer's silence spoke volumes.

"Well, I only said it because I had been getting a vibe of sorts that you weren't truly happy here." Normal examined Horrible's downcast face with keen interest.

"It seems that my impressions appear to have been right."

"But…I don't understand! All you'd ever wanted, from when you were a little kid, was to be in the ELE! What changed your mind?" Horrible couldn't help but glance at Penny's bloodless face.

"Seriously, is there _anything_ you do that isn't for this girl?" asked Normal with a most incredulous expression upon his face.

"Not really."

"Well, I'm not sure if this is proof of true love, true idiocy or a _really_ unhealthy infatuation…" The Doctor stayed quiet, waiting for Normal to finish up sorting out the medications Penny would require for the rest of her life.

"Well, Doctor, I don't really think there's much point of you waiting around here; Penny won't be waking up any time soon, and I'd like to keep in my lab overnight for observations and a couple of tests to find out if there has been any permanent damage. The _Orbifinialis Remedium _I gave to her before clearly weren't strong enough to counteract the effects of the resurrection, so I'm also going to have to make a stronger dose…"

"I don't want to leave her, just in case-"

"Nothing is going to happen to her, Horrible." A note of impatience had crept into the Professor's voice now. "She stabilised, she should be alright in a day or two. Well, more all right that she is now. I suggest that you and your henchman go and get yourselves some coffee, because frankly, you look like you need it. I'll call you if she wakes up." Horrible nodded and got to his feet, but seemed reluctant to walk out of the lab door. He lingered at the foot of Penny's bed, his legs unwilling to function.

"Horrible, _go_! You'll just mope and get in my way if you stay here. And anyway, I'm pretty sure that you have some very important decisions to make!"

Billy couldn't deny that fact. There were many things on his mind that required thought, choices that would ultimately decide his future in a large number of ways.

* * *

Whilst the other patrons of the coffee shop chattered happily away with an air nonchalance, freshly brewed cups of coffee warming their fingertips, Moist and Horrible were blanketed in melancholy. The heat from their drinks did nothing to pierce the shroud of sadness or brighten the gloom of the two men. They had been silent for a while now, doing little more than take a sip every now and then. It was hard to believe that, just a couple of weeks ago, they had been sat in this very same café laughing and joking with Penny. The mahogany décor, which Billy had once felt gave the shop a homely feel now felt dark and oppressive. The coffee tasted bitter as opposed to refreshing and the tinkling music from the stereos had become more irritating than soothing.

Billy thought back to his last visit to the coffee shop, and recalled the far more jovial atmosphere they had enjoyed then. But as he thought about it, he remembered… aspects… of the trip that maybe should have hinted that not all was well. The same young barista was serving drinks at the counter, and Horrible remembered the man's strange reaction to Penny's presence; anger and intrigue followed immediately by a complete inability to admit to the woman's existence. Now, Horrible supposed that this was all to do with Penny's resurrection upsetting the natural course of the universe, but Billy couldn't help but wonder if the barista's refusal to see the redhead wasn't something to do with humanity's incredible knack of only seeing that which it wished to acknowledge. It was something Penny had ranted about on numerous occasions, back when they were spending their hours doing their laundry. She used to get very angry over how people would turn a blind eye to the homeless in the streets or the suffering of animals.

Billy wondered what would happen when Normal carried out his master plan, and what Penny would make of it.

He couldn't imagine that she would be too happy.

In an attempt to clear his already over-crowded brain, the Doctor took another glug of his scalding hot drink. He was very aware that Moist had been watching him intently for the past five minutes.

"You're thinking of quitting." It wasn't a question.

"I…don't really know."

"You don't seem to know a lot lately, Doc." Horrible's replying smile was void of any form of happiness.

"You do so much for Penny; don't you think she'd understand that the ELE is your dream, what you want-"

"I'M NOT SURE IF IT'S WHAT I WANT ANY MORE!" Billy hadn't meant to raise his voice, but somehow he was on his feet and glowering at his henchman whilst an entire coffee shop watched the spectacle unfold. He felt heat prickle up his neck and across his face. With as much dignity as possible, the Doctor sat back down, very much hoping to camouflage in with the leather sofa so that the other patrons would carry on with their mundane little conversations. Opposite him, Moist still looked somewhat startled by his friend's sudden anger; Horrible wasn't exactly known for being emotionally unstable. He was normally rather calm and collected.

But after all these recent events, Moist was beginning to expect just about anything. The Doctor had changed so much in the past few months. When he had begun work on the Resurrect-Ohm-Meter, Moist had hoped that maybe, just maybe, he'd get the old Doc back; the fanatical scientist, the one who was crazily in love with the rights advocate at the laundrette. He had hoped that the depression would subside- and it had. But now…the euphoria that enveloped Billy was long gone. At first, there was mere happiness, but then self-doubt had seemingly replaced all emotions. Besides the crushing despair and fear that had recently taken hold as a result of Penny's illness.

In all honesty, all Moist wanted was to have Dr Horrible back. His employer and only true friend. But now, it looked as if the Doc was going to give up everything he had ever worked for.

And forfeit the rest as well.

"I…I'm sorry…" muttered the Doctor, eyes staring into the depths of his cup. Moist nodded sharply, fighting for a moment with his mug in an attempt to gain a grip on the handle.

"I just want to know _why_. Why does loving Penny mean you have to give up all you've ever worked for?"

"Because…she deserves more than what I can offer her."

"Why does that mean leaving the ELE though? Why can't-"

"I just have to Moist. The ELE… Normal's master-plan…it's against everything she ever stood for, everything she wanted in this world. I've worked with people who would happily watch people die if it would gain them power, _I've_ done things for my own selfish gain. It was Captain Hammer who made me realise what it is that I've become! I've kidded myself into believing that what I've been doing was chivalrous; that resurrecting Penny was a good deed, that every plot, every scheme, was to correct the status quo. But I've been lying to myself! My greed and my ambition have made me blind, and these past few weeks with Penny have made me realise that I just don't want to be Horrible anymore!" Billy finished with a heavy breath and a large sip from the patterned china before him. Moist regarded him with a blank expression. He was still processing everything.

"She doesn't know, does she?" Moist's face was expressionless, but the Doctor knew exactly he meant.

"You never told her that it was your Death Ray that killed her."

"No…I could never…find the words. Or the courage."

"Will you ever tell her?" A lengthy pause followed Mosit's question.

"I suppose that that is another decision I'm yet to make."


End file.
